white cat, to which there was silently joined a great company of
cats of every hue conceivable; then these also disappeared, and he
was left astonished.

This was an anodyne appearance. Take instead the experience of
Rua-a-mariterangi on the isle of Katiu. He had a need for some
pandanus, and crossed the isle to the sea-beach, where it chiefly
flourishes. The day was still, and Rua was surprised to hear a
crashing sound among the thickets, and then the fall of a
considerable tree. Here must be some one building a canoe; and he
entered the margin of the wood to find and pass the time of day
with this chance neighbour. The crashing sounded more at hand; and
then he was aware of something drawing swiftly near among the tree-
tops. It swung by its heels downward, like an ape, so that its
hands were free for murder; it depended safely by the slightest
twigs; the speed of its coming was incredible; and soon Rua
recognised it for a corpse, horrible with age, its bowels hanging
as it came. Prayer was the weapon of Christian in the Valley of
the Shadow, and it is to prayer that Rua-a-mariterangi attributes
his escape. No merely human expedition had availed.

This demon was plainly from the grave; yet you will observe he was
abroad by day. And inconsistent as it may seem with the hours of
the night watch and the many references to the rising of the
morning star, it is no singular exception. I could never find a
case of another who had seen this ghost, diurnal and arboreal in
its habits; but others have heard the fall of the tree, which seems
the signal of its coming. Mr. Donat was once pearling on the
uninhabited isle of Haraiki. It was a day without a breath of
wind, such as alternate in the archipelago with days of