“Afu!  Afu!  Afu!” he said, the sound that in his tongue means the groan of the dying.  “You came by the Fatueki?”.

“I tasted the water and smelled the smell,” I answered.

“It was there that Tufetu died,” he observed.  “I struck the blow, and I ate his arm, his right arm, for he was brave and strong.  That was a war!”

“What caused that war?” I asked the merry cannibal.

“A woman, haa teketeka, an unfaithful woman, as always,” replied Kahauiti.  “Do you have trouble over women in your island?  Yes.  It is the same the world over.  There was peace between Atuona and Taaoa before this trouble.  When I was a boy we were good friends.  We visited across the hills.  Many children were adopted, and Taaoa men took women from Atuona, and Atuona men from here.  Some of these women had two or three or five men.  One husband was the father of her children in title and pride, though he might be no father at all.  The others shared the mat with her at her will, but had no possession or happiness in the offspring.

[Illustration:  Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sister Her ancestry is tattooed on her arms]

[Illustration:  A tattooed Marquesan with carved canoe paddle]

“Now Pepehi (Beaten to Death) was of Taaoa, but lived in Atuona with a woman.  He had followed her over the hills and lived in her house.  He was father to her children.  There was a man of Atuona, Kaheutahi, who was husband to her, but of lower rank.  He was not father to her children.  Therefore one night he swung his war-club upon the head of Beaten to Death, and later invited a number of friends to the feast.”

Kahuiti smiled gently upon me.  Take off his tattooing, make him white, and clothe him!  With his masterful carriage, his soft, cultivated voice, and his attitude of absolutism, he might have been Leopold, King of the Belgians, a great ambassador, a man of power in finance.  Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking Springs.  How could one explain his benign, open-souled deportment and his cheery laugh, with such damnable appetites and actions?  Yet generals send ten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain a point toward a goal; that is the custom of generals, by which they gain honor among their people.

“Killed by the war-club of Kaheutahi and eaten by his friends, Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and Kaheutahi took his place and became father of the children of the house.  He said they were his in fact, but men were ever boastful.”

The other old man, who said nothing, but was all attention, lit a pipe and passed it to Kahuiti, who puffed it a moment and passed it to Strong in Battle.  The tale lapsed for a smoking spell.

“Beaten to Death perished by the club?  He was well named,” said I.  “His father was a prophet.”

Kahuiti began to chant in a weird monotone.