pipe, "square-built and strong. And the walls were of great blocks made
of PANISINA--of coral and lime and sand mixed together; and around each
centre-post--posts that to lift one took the strength of fifty men--was
wound two thousand fathoms of thin plaited cinnet, stained red and
black. APA! he was a great man here in these MOTU (islands), although
he fled from prison in your land; and when he stepped on the beach the
marks of the iron bands that had once been round his ankles were yet
red to the sight. There be none such as he in these days. But he is now
in Hell."

This was the long-deferred funeral oration of Macy O'Shea, sometime
member of the chain-gang of Port Arthur, in Van Dieman's Land, and
subsequently runaway convict, beachcomber, cutter-off of whaleships,
and Gentleman of Leisure in Eastern Polynesia. And of his many known
crimes the deed done in this isolated spot was the darkest of all.
Judge of it yourself.


* * * * *


The arrowy shafts of sunrise had scarce pierced the deep gloom of the
silent forest ere the village woke to life. Right beside the
thatch-covered dwelling of Macy O'Shea, now a man of might, there
towers a stately TAMANU tree; and, as the first faint murmur of women's
voices arises from the native huts, there is a responsive twittering
and cooing in the thickly-leaved branches, and further back in the
forest the heavy, booming note of the red-crested pigeon sounds forth
like the beat of a muffled drum.