“You know how long it seems. We had no watches, but after about a minute, Matatoa suddenly tottered and then dived. The water was not very clear there because of the issuance of the spring, and mud stirred up, and we could not see beneath the surface. But we knew something unexpected had happened, and Miss Dorey seized my arm.
“‘For God’s sake, go down and help him,’ she shrieked.
Old cocoanut trees
From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
The dark valley of Taaoa
“I hesitated. I didn’t think anything was wrong, but even then I had a feeling of not risking anything to save him if it was. He had too much already. Rotten! I know it. But that’s my nature. I couldn’t have done any good. Matatoa came up and went down again and then a half dozen dived to the place where Willis and Taaroa were out of sight. One came up and yelled that he could not find them, and then we knew the worst. They were gone by this time more than three minutes. Then I leaped in, too, but there were so many of us we got tangled up with one another under the water, and as Matatoa came near me I told every one else to move aside, and that we two would make the search.
“Well, we found that at the spring a frightful sponge of seaweed and kelp had grown, and that Willis and Taaroa had become fastened in it. We had to take down knives to cut them out, and we brought them up together. She had him clasped in her arms so tightly we had to tear them apart. They were like dead. His heart was not beating, but we carried them up the rocky path and with as much speed as possible to the fires which the natives still had for cooking. There Pakomeo and Ure Vaeiko directed the holding of them in the smoke which, as you know, does sometimes bring them back, but they were dead as Queen Korato. We put the body of the American on a horse and took it to the palace. Taaroa remained at Orongo, and her tribe began at once preparations to bury her in one of the burrows. Miss Dorey was quiet. Except that one shriek I did not hear her cry. I went to Vaihu that night and left Timi Linder with them. I got drunk, and Timi said in the morning that the English girl stayed alone all night with Willis in the living room.”
I had sat so long listening to Llewellyn that when, with the tension off, I tried to stand up, I reeled. He sat with his head bowed. Captain Nimau grasped my arm to help himself up, and said, “Mais, mon Dieu! that was terrible. You buried the American there, and the Doreys left soon.”
“The next day, after the burial. I remained two years more, and, by the great Atua of Rano Roraku, I wasn’t sober a week at a time.”