and the weird monotones of the chanting tambu maidens had caught the tempo of her dance, she gave a scream, stood perfectly still and stared on those wild men with a terrified look in her eyes. Then, before anyone could realise her intentions, she had leapt from the pae pae, had run away into the forest and vanished like a wraith!

The whole tribal assemblage looked into each other’s eyes in astonishment. Such an exhibition of red betel-nut-stained teeth had never been seen in a midnight forest festival before, for they all stared open-mouthed.

“Tabaran [a spirit] from shadow-land!” said one.

“Not so. Didst see the light of vanity in her wondrous eyes as the young chiefs praised her beauty?” said another.

“’Tis a white girl suddenly up-grown and full of fever for love,” said an old chief with wise wrinkles on his brow. And then yet another said: “Had it been a full-moon sacred festival, ’twould have been well to slay her for such boldness, the cursed papalagi!”

Then the festival broke up. And that night the handsome chiefs, and even the aged priests, tossed restlessly on their bed-mats as they lay in their village huts dreaming of a goddess-like creature who had flitted through their tambu ceremony like a dream.