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Tetuahunahuna ran to the nearest house for a lantern and poles, and while two remained in the boat to hold it off the rocks, the others carried my luggage to Atuona. I took the lead in a drizzling rain, carrying the light, mighty glad to stretch my legs after more than a dozen hours of cramp. Passing the house of the chief-of-police, I heard laughter and the clink of glasses. Bauda halted me with a leveled revolver, thinking we were a rum-smuggling gang. That brave African soldier was ever dramatic, and D'Artagnan could not have struck a finer attitude as he thrust the gun in my face and called out, "Halte l
He gave orders to clear the grounds, and Bauda issued commands from the veranda while Song and Flag lugged away the drums and drove the excited mob out of the garden and across the bridge. All in all, this Sunday was typical of Atuona under the new régime. After a quiet bath in the pool below my cabin I got my own dinner, unassisted by Exploding Eggs, and went early to bed to forestall visitors.
Men and women were waiting with a kind of apathetic resignation; melancholy and unresisting despair seemed the only spirit left to them. On the veranda with the governor and Bauda were several whites, one a French woman to whom we were presented.
Our arrival was watched by a score of Marquesan chiefs who had been summoned by Bauda for the purpose, as he told me, of being urged to thrash the tax-tree more vigorously. The meeting adjourned instantly, and they hastened down from the frame building that housed the government offices. Their curiosity could not be restrained.
He needed little clothing, as his skin was very brown and his strong body magnificent. He was an acceptable prisoner to Bauda, who had charge of the making and repair of roads and bridges, so Huahine was quickly sentenced and put to work with others who were paying their taxes by labor.
The governor in gala attire was again the urban host, assisted by André Bauda, now his close friend and confidant. Bauda himself had been in the island only a few months, and knew no more Marquesan speech than the governor. Both these officials were truly hospitable, embarrassingly so, considering my inability to keep up with them in their toasts.
The judge, the clerk, and the interpreter, Daughter of the Pigeon, and I toasted the blind goddess in rum, the sun being very hot on the iron roof. Bauda and I stayed to breakfast at eleven o'clock, and the governor permitted me to look through the dossier of Daughter of the Pigeon.
The speeches done, the governor suggested that the national spirit be interpreted to him in pantomine. "They must be enlivened with alcohol or they will not move," said Guillitoue. "Mon dieu!" he replied. "It is the 'Folies Bergère' over again! Give them wine!" Bauda ordered Flag, the native gendarme, and Song of the Nightingale, a prisoner, to carry a demijohn of Bordeaux wine to the garden.
Was all that tender care of his whiskers to be wasted on scenery? However, after a drink or two he resignedly took his belongings, and dropping into the wet and dirty boat with Bauda, he lifted an umbrella over his gaudy cap and disappeared in the rain. "'E's got a bloomin' nice place to live in," remarked Lying Bill. "Now, if 'e 'd a-been 'ere when I come 'e 'd a-seen something!
He did not reply to my question, but sipped his bowl of kava. The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia's white man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the white man who used his harpoon against his friends. During my absence in Taaoa there had been crime and scandal in my own valley. André Bauda met me on the beach road as I returned and told me the tale.
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