“A body would think there was something in this,” said the missionary. “But if these tales are true, I wonder what about my tales!”
Now the flaming of Akaänga’s torch drew near in the night; and the misshapen hands groped in the meshes of the net; and they took the missionary between the finger and the thumb, and bore him dripping in the night and silence to the place of the ovens of Miru. And there was Miru, ruddy in the glow of the ovens; and there sat her four daughters, and made the kava of the dead; and there sat the comers out of the islands of the living, dripping and lamenting.
This was a dread place to reach for any of the sons of men. But of all who ever came there, the missionary was the most concerned; and, to make things worse, the person next him was a convert of his own.
“Aha,” said the convert, “so you are here like your neighbours? And how about all your stories?”
“It seems,” said the missionary, with bursting tears, “that there was nothing in them.”
By this the kava of the dead was ready, and the daughters of Miru began to intone in the old manner of singing. “Gone are the green islands and the bright sea, the sun and the moon and the forty million stars, and life and love and hope. Henceforth is no more, only to sit in the night and silence, and see your friends devoured; for life is a deceit, and the bandage is taken from your eyes.”
Now when the singing was done, one of the daughters came with the bowl. Desire of that kava rose in the missionary’s bosom; he lusted for it like a swimmer for the land, or a bridegroom for his bride; and he reached out his hand, and took the bowl, and would have drunk. And then he remembered, and put it back.
“Drink!” sang the daughter of Miru.
“There is no kava like the kava of the dead, and to drink of it once is the reward of living.”
“I thank you. It smells excellent,” said the missionary. “But I am a blue-ribbon man myself; and though I am aware there is a difference of opinion even in our own confession, I have always held kava to be excluded.”