"Biloo-ow-ow-ow-ow-zing-aaa!"
Again, and yet again, it rang across the waters, and in the distance, flying at incredible speed, I saw the rainbow host of fatu-livas coming towards us!
Gallant fowl! Shall I ever forget how they circled about us. One of their clan, as they supposed, was in dire danger and they functioned as only a fatu-liva can. Flying at an immense height, in battle formation, they began laying eggs with marvelous precision. The first two struck the wak-wak square on the nose and he screamed with pain. The third, landing corner-wise, put out his right eye and he began to thrash in helpless circles. The fourth was a direct hit on my left temple. "Face-of-the-Moon" passed over the horizon into oblivion whence he emerged to find himself in a tree, his brow eased with an alova-leaf poultice, his heart comforted by Daughter of Pearl and Coral.
CHAPTER VII
Excursions beyond the outer reef. Our aquatic wives. Premonitions. A picnic on the mountain. Hearts and flowers. Whinney delivers a geological dissertation. Babai finds a fatu-liva nest. The strange flower in my wife's hair.
As I look back on the months which followed I can truthfully say that they were the happiest of my existence. The semi-detachment of our island domesticity was a charm against tedium; our family reunions were joys.
Often we organized picnics to distant points. With hold-alls of panjandrus leaves packed with a supply of breadfruit sandwiches, sun-baked cuttywink eggs and a gallon or two of hoopa, we would go to one of the lovely retreats with which our wives were familiar.
Occasionally we sailed in the Kawa, at which times the intrepid Triplett accompanied us. Remembering those happy times I now realize that his presence cast the only shadow across the bright sunlight of our days. Why this was I could not have said,—indeed I should have probably denied that it was so, yet the fact remains that on some of our excursions to neighboring islands, when, having pulled back the terrestrial cork of the atoll, we had eased our tight little craft into the outer waters, I experienced a distinct dorsal chill.