“Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white men, and George Washington, the black American, tried to capture Anna, but Pere Simeon, the priest, had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, and the Sisters guarded her carefully.  From the time she played naked on the beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in the silver box given her by her father, and she said the prayers Pere Simeon taught her from the book.  She wore a blue pareu, and that was strange, for only old people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellow loin-cloth.  But blue, said little Anna, is the color of Maria Peato, mother of Christ.”

The others were listening curiously.  Ghost Girl crossed herself and muttered, “Kaoha, Maria Peato!”

“When she had fourteen years, then, Anna was different from all other girls on these beaches.  All men sighed for her, but she was one who would not follow the custom of our girls since always.  She was made different by her mother, by the prayers of Pere Simeon, and by something strange in her kuhane—­what do you say?  Soul.  She cared nothing for drink or pipi, the trinkets girls adore.  She spoke of herself always as the daughter of a Menike captain, a father who would come for her and take her away.  Her mother had kept this always in her mind, and Anna never joined the dances.

“Her mother, who lived on the beach and waited for the sailors, saw her seldom, for Pere Simeon had taken Anna away, and kept her in the nuns’ house, and they guarded her.  He had put a tapu upon her.”

I sat up suddenly, struck by a memory.  “It was she who rode the white horse, and bore the armor of Joan in the great parade?”

“It was she.  The nuns would have had her live in the nun’s house forever, and become one of them.  But Anna told me on the beach when she came hiding to see her mother, that she would live in the nuns’ house only until her Menike father came to take her away.  She kept the tiki of Bernadette in its silver box upon her neck, and it was her god to whom she said her prayers.”

“Epo!” I said, sitting up, dumfounded.  “Go on, Tetuahunahuna.  Tell me more.”

“There came the great day of the blessed Joan,” said Tetuahunahuna, after tasting a fresh cigarette.  “There were drums and chants, and rum for all.  Pere Simeon took away the rum, alas! and only the Menike sailors on the ships could have enough.  Anna wore a garment that shone like the sun on the waves, and sat upon a white horse, riding from the mission to the House of Lepers on the beach.  Pere Simeon walked before her carrying the tiki of the Sacrament, and there were banners white as the new web of the cocoanut.  Anna did not look to right or to left as she sat upon the horse, but when she stood on the sand by the House of Lepers, she looked long at a new ship in the bay.

“Anna said that this ship might be that of her white father, but the name was different, and this ship was not from Newbeddifordimass.  She said she would swim to this ship to see her father, but her mother said no.  Her mother told her that the waters were full of sharks, and that not even a tiki of Bernadette would save her.  Then came the nuns, and took Anna away.  Anna wept as she went with them, for she desired to stay and look at the ship.