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"I saw you with that daughter of Liha-Liha," he said, using the native name of the dead millionaire. "You be careful. One time I baked bread in Taaoa. My oven was near his plantation. I saw that girl come into the woods and take off her dress. She had a mirror to see her back, and I looked, and the sun shone bright. What she saw, I saw a patch of white. She is a leper, that rich girl."
He was found bleeding upon the deck, and the bones of his head were cut and lifted and patched, so that to-day he lives, as well as ever. Earth Worm was never found. A boat with a lantern was lowered, but it found nothing but the fins of sharks. "That was the work of Drink of Beer, who had hated Earth Worm because he was a brave and strong man of Taaoa.
"But there was too much peace between us, too many men with Atuona women, too many Atuona children adopted by Taaoa women. The peace was happy, and there was no great warrior to urge." "You had brave men and strong men then," I said, with a sigh for the things I had missed by coming late. "Tuitui! You put weeds in my mouth!" exclaimed Kahuiti. "I cannot talk with your words. Ue te etau!
Since Kahuiti, my man-eating friend of Taaoa, was born, the cycle had been completed. I was on my way now to see, in Tai-o-hae, a man who was giving his life to bring the white man's religion to the few dying natives who remained. At dusk the wind died, and we put out the oars.
"My uncle, the Catechist, is Tioakoekoe, Man Whose Entrails Were Roasted on a Stick, and his brother is called Pootuhatuha, meaning Sliced and Distributed. That is because their father, Tufetu, was killed at the Stinking Springs in Taaoa, and was cooked and sent all over that valley. You should see that man who killed him, Kahuiti! He is a great man, and strong still, though old.
The barefooted bailiff, Flag, stole out on the veranda occasionally to take a cigarette from the inhabitants of the valley of Taaoa, who crowded the lawn around the veranda steps. All save Kahuiti, they had come over the mountains to attend in a body a trial in which two of them figured the case of Santos vs.
Santos was a small man, born in Guam, and had been ten years in Taaoa, having deserted from a ship. He and I talked on the veranda in Spanish, and he explained the desperate plight into which love had dragged him. He adored Tahaiupehe, the belle of Taaoa. For months he had poured at her feet all his earnings, and faithfully he had labored at copra-making to gain money for her.
That night Tomefitu and I, with four others, went silently to Otoputo, the dividing rock that looks down on the right into the valley of Taaoa and on the left into Atuona. There we lay among rocks and bushes and spied upon the feet of the enemy. That man who separated himself from others and came our way to seek food, or to visit at the house of a friend, him we secretly fell upon, and slew.
"Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa," said my guest, sitting cross-legged on my mats, his long-nailed, yellow fingers folded in his lap. "He was nephew of Pohue-toa, eater of many men. Earth Worm was arrested by Drink of Beer and brought before the former governor, Lailheugue, known as Little Pig.
The eating was a thing accomplished in the past; the teachings of that stern Calvinist, his mother, forbade that he should eat Kahuiti in retaliation, therefore their relations were amicable. The following morning, attended by the faithful Exploding Eggs, I set out toward Taaoa Valley.
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