If my guess that the tree in the Arician grove was once a sanctuary, or asylum for fugitives, including fugitive slaves, is plausible, I cannot, of course, conjecture as to the reason of its protective sanctity. It may have been one of the three Samoan reasons (which none of us could have guessed correctly), or any other motive may have taken effect. A fugitive slave, of course, was not awaiting trial and chance of acquittal. By custom he would be restored to his master's tender mercies, or live on under the tree. But an unlimited asylum of fugitive slaves was an inconvenient neighbour to Aricia. Hence (it is physically conceivable, but I lay no stress on it) the asylum was at last limited to one fugitive slave at a time. It was not like the forest in the Indian fable, populated by 'millions of hermits,' who cannot have been very solitary anchorites. Any fugitive slave who took sanctuary had to kill and dispossess the prior occupant. There was only sanctuary for one at a time. More would have been most inconvenient. In any case the one solitary duty of the ghastly priest (as far as we know) was to act as _garde champêtre_ to one certain tree. Why this one tree, we do not and cannot know. I am averse to Sir Alfred Lyall's plan of suggesting singular solutions arising out of some possible historical accident in the veiled past, when the problem to be solved is a practice of wide diffusion. The causes, in such cases of wide diffusion, cannot be regarded as mere freaks or recurring accidents. But this affair of the tree and its inviolate branches is isolated, unless we regard the tree as a taboo or sanctuary tree, which it might be for many reasons, as in Samoa, perhaps because it was the residence of a tree-spirit. At all events, the priest's only known duty was to guard the tree. Then, why had his would-be successor to break a bough before fighting? Obviously as a challenge, and also as a warning. The priest in office was to 'have a fair show;' some 'law' was to be given him. When he found a branch broken, any branch, he was in the position of the pirate captain on whom 'the black spot' was passed.[41] He was in the situation of the king of the Eyeos, to whom a present of parrots' eggs meant that it was 'time for him to go.'[42] If the bough was mistletoe, and if the fugitive slave, like the Druids in Pliny,[43] had to climb for it, then the ghastly priest 'had him at an avail.' It was any odds on the priest, who could 'tree' his man or cut him down as he descended. However, our authorities tell us about no bough in particular, still less about mistletoe. Let me add that, if the bough was mistletoe, the sacred tree would need to be changed every time (of which we hear nothing), for it is not a case of _Uno avulso non deficit alter_ with mistletoe.