Till out in the night by the pale moonlight their shadows seek my hut—
Out of the forest depth one runs, and the white girl up the shore
Till the dead child screams and the unborn watch the shadows by my door.
I stayed in that village all the next day, and at sunset I bade Marmona’s friends good-bye. Also I bade that sad trader farewell, and he held my hand for a long time before he said good-bye.
It seemed like some enchanted village of fairyland as I looked back over the slopes and saw the sun like a large ball of blood sink into the sea and the moon rise over the mountainous country inland, peeping through the heavens of shadow and stars that brightened out in the east. I passed away from the place with a strange feeling in my heart for that lonely man and all that would happen when the sea-shore village lay once more asleep in the moonlight. I have heard many strange tales of spirits and “ju-jus” from men in my travels, but never one so strangely sad and impressive as his, and I have often wondered if all that that old man told me was the outcome of a delirious brain or really some haunting truth that can be seen by the eyes of those hearts that sorrow.
Native Bamboo Bridge
XIV
South Sea Domestic Life—I attend another South Sea Wedding—Meet Men flying from Justice—Bound for Tahiti