“Great Night Moth had escaped because he had been adopted by the chief of Taaoa, while his father was hunting the children in the forest.”
“That is horrible, horrible!” said Le Brunnec. “Maybe this Great Night Moth could not but be bad with such a father. All these chiefs, the hereditary ones, are rotten. Their children are often insane. They have degenerated. After the whalers came and gave them whiskey, and the traders absinthe and drugs, they learned the vices of the white man, which are worse for them than for us.”
“Do you think the eating of men began by the ave one, the famine?” I put the question to Many Pieces of Tattooing, who was about to leave the store with Great Night Moth.
“Ae, tiatohu! It is so,” he answered. “Our legends say that often in the many centuries we have remembered there have been years when food failed. It was in those times that they began to eat one another, and when food was plenty, they continued for revenge. They learned to like it. Human meat is good.”
“Ask the gentleman if he has himself enjoyed such feasts,” I urged Le Brunnec.
“I will not!” said the Frenchman, hastily. “Tavatini is a good customer. He has money on deposit with me. He eats biscuits and beef. He might be offended and buy of the Germans.”
Many Pieces of Tattooing nudged Great Night Moth, and they advanced to their horses, which were tied to the store building. The madman mounted with the ease of a cowboy, and they rode off at speed.
CHAPTER XXXVII
A visit to the hermit of Taha-Uka valley; the vengeance that made the Scallamera lepers; and the hatred of Mohuto.
Le Verogose, a Breton planter who lived in Taka-Uka Valley, was full of camaraderie, esteeming friendship a genuine tie, and given to many friendly impulses. He had a two-room cabin set high on the slope of the river bank, unadorned, but clean, and though his busy, hardworking days gave him little time for social intercourse, he occasionally invited me there to dinner with him and his wife.