top and the morning blood-gouts on the wall.

But the dead are not exclusive in their diet. They carry with them
to the grave, in particular, the Polynesian taste for fish, and
enter at times with the living into a partnership in fishery. Rua-
a-mariterangi is again my authority; I feel it diminishes the
credit of the fact, but how it builds up the image of this
inveterate ghost-seer! He belongs to the miserably poor island of
Taenga, yet his father's house was always well supplied. As Rua
grew up he was called at last to go a-fishing with this fortunate
parent. They rowed the lagoon at dusk, to an unlikely place, and
the lay down in the stern, and the father began vainly to cast his
line over the bows. It is to be supposed that Rua slept; and when
he awoke there was the figure of another beside his father, and his
father was pulling in the fish hand over hand. 'Who is that man,
father?' Rua asked. 'It is none of your business,' said the
father; and Rua supposed the stranger had swum off to them from
shore. Night after night they fared into the lagoon, often to the
most unlikely places; night after night the stranger would suddenly
be seen on board, and as suddenly be missed; and morning after
morning the canoe returned laden with fish. 'My father is a very
lucky man,' thought Rua. At last, one fine day, there came first
one boat party and then another, who must be entertained; father
and son put off later than usual into the lagoon; and before the
canoe was landed it was four o'clock, and the morning star was
close on the horizon. Then the stranger appeared seized with some
distress; turned about, showing for the first time his face, which
was that of one long dead, with shining eyes; stared into the east,
set the tips of his fingers to his mouth like one a-cold, uttered a
strange, shuddering sound between a whistle and a moan--a thing to