began:

"The men of this island, Tahuata, in the old days descended on
Fatu-hiva to hunt the man-meat. After the battle, they brought their
captives to Hana Hevane to rest, to build a fire and to eat one of
their catch. This they did, and departed again. But when they were in
their canoes, they found they had forgotten a girl whom they had
thrown on the sand, and they returned for her. The sea was rough,
and they had to stay here on the beach for the night.

"As was the custom, they erected a gibbet, two posts and a
horizontal bar, and on the bar they hung the living prisoners, with
a cord of _parau_ bark passed through the scalp and tied around the
hair. Their arms were tied behind them, and they swung in the breeze.

"In the night, when the Tahuata men slept from their gluttony, one
of them arose silently and unbound a prisoner who was his friend,
and told him to run to the mountains. He then lay down and slept,
and in the darkness this man who had been freed returned stealthily
in the darkness, and unloosed a girl, the same who had been
forgotten on the sand. In the morning the other captives were dead,
but those who escaped were months in the fastness of the heights,
living on roots and on birds they snared. In the end they went to
Motopu. They were well received, for the Tahuata warriors thought a
god had aided them, and they and their children lived long there."

Ugh! smiled reminiscently as if his thoughts were returning from
pleasant things, and clapped his hands as a signal for reembarking.

The bowls of food remaining were tied in baskets of leaves and hung