The return was effected in good order, but unhappily I only
arrived (like so many other explorers) to find my main body
or rear-guard in a condition of mutiny; the work, it is to be
supposed, of terror. It is right I should tell you the Vaea
has a bad name, an AITU FAFINE - female devil of the woods -
succubus - haunting it, and doubtless Jack had heard of her;
perhaps, during my absence, saw her; lucky Jack! Anyway, he
was neither to hold nor to bind, and finally, after nearly
smashing me by accident, and from mere scare and
insubordination several times, deliberately set in to kill
me; but poor Jack! the tree he selected for that purpose was
a banana! I jumped off and gave him the heavy end of my whip
over the buttocks! Then I took and talked in his ear in
various voices; you should have heard my alto - it was a
dreadful, devilish note - I KNEW Jack KNEW it was an AITU.
Then I mounted him again, and he carried me fairly steadily.
He'll learn yet. He has to learn to trust absolutely to his
rider; till he does, the risk is always great in thick bush,
where a fellow must try different passages, and put back and
forward, and pick his way by hair's-breadths.

The expedition returned to Vailima in time to receive the
visit of the R. C. Bishop. He is a superior man, much above
the average of priests.


THURSDAY.