muscular movements were of a perfection unexcelled, and soon infected the bandsmen, now with all discipline unleashed.  One sprang from the table and took his position before her.  Together they danced, moving in unison, or the man answering the woman’s motions when her agitation lulled.  The spectators were absorbed in the hula.  They clapped hands and played, and when the first man wearied, another took his place.

Mamoe stopped, and drank a goblet of rum.  Her eyes wandered toward our end of the table, and she came to us.  She put her hand on Landers.  The big trader, who was dressed in white linen, accepted the challenge.  He pushed back the bench and stood up.

Landers in looks was out of a novel.  If Henry Dixey, the handsome actor, whose legs made his fame before he might attest his head’s capacity, were expanded to the proportions of Muldoon, the wrestler, he might have been Landers.  Apparently about thirtythree, really past forty, he was as big as the young “David” of the Buonarroti, of the most powerful and graceful physique, with curling brown hair, and almost perfect features; a giant of a man, as cool as an igloo, with a melodious Australasian voice pitched low, and a manner with men and women that was irresistible.

He faced Mamoe, and Temanu seized the accordion and broke into a mad upaupa.  An arm’s-length from Mamoe Landers simulated every pulsation of her quaking body.  He was an expert, it was plain, and his handsome face, generally calm and unexpressive, was aglow with excitement.  Mamoe recognized her gyratory equal in this giant, and often their bodies met in the ecstasy of their curveting.  Landers, towering above her, and bigger in bone and muscle than she in sheer flesh, was like a figure from a Saturnalia.  The call of the isles was ringing in his ears, and one had only to glance at him to hear Pan among the reeds, to be back in the glades where fauns and nymphs were at play.

I saw Landers a care-free animal for the moment, rejoicing in his strength and skill, answering the appeal of sex in the dance.  When he sat down the animal was still in him, but care again had clouded his brow.  I think our early ancestors must have been much like Landers in this dance, strong, and merry for the time, seeking the woman in pleasures, fiery in movement for the nonce, and relapsing into stolidity.  I can see why Landers, who takes what he will of womankind in these islands, still dominates in the trading, and bends most people his way.  The animal way is the way here.  The way of the city, of mere subtlety, of avoidance of issues, of intellectual control, is not the way of Polynesia.  Bulk and sinew and no fear of God or man are the rules of the game south of the line, as “north of 53.”

With Landers dancing, so must the others.  Hobson had dropped in, and he, David, McHenry, Schlyter, and Lying Bill, trod a measure, and I, though with only a Celtic urge and a couple of years in Hawaii to teach me, faced Temanu.  The bandsmen could not remain still, and, with Kelly to play the accordion, the rout became general.  McHenry did not molest Hobson, who remained.