Upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over, part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured.

This man died not, but lived.  But from being a warrior of great sense and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many of the characteristics of his swinish grafting.  He survived the operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going mad, and dying in his delirium.

Stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some present.  But Babbalanja held out to the last.

“Yet, if this story be true,” said he, “and since it is well settled, that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, I see not why human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the contents of a man’s.  I have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures; and so forming new combinations.  My friend Atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded according to a receipt of his own.”

But little they heeded Babbalanja.  It was the traveler’s tale that most arrested attention.

Tough the thews, and tough the tales of Samoa.

CHAPTER XCIX “Marnee Ora, Ora Marnee”

During the afternoon of the day of the diver’s decease, preparations were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in Odo, so was the custom here.

Meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed, beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying—­“A man is dead; let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh Oro!—­Let no canoes put to sea till the burial.  This night, oh Oro!—­Let no food be cooked.”

And ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang—­

    Be merry, oh men of Mondoldo,
      A maiden this night is to wed: 
    Be merry, oh damsels of Mardi,—­
      Flowers, flowers for the bridal bed.

Informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed.

Arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed, between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough.

The relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that blood flowed, and spotted their vesture.

Upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife of the diver, she exclaimed, “Yes; great is the pain, but greater my affliction.”