"The native rose and stole away, and soon they heard his voice calling softly in the Paumotan tongue. He seemed to be in conversation with the people underground. When he returned there was an odd smile on his lips. 'It is strange,' he said, 'those people speak a tongue such as our old men use. They are like beasts or cruel children, killing because they know no better, or are afraid. I do not believe that they are evil men. There is no entrance to the cave--only a little hole in the rock, through which a man may thrust his hand and arm. The place is sacred in these people's eyes and on the ground close to the hole there is an offering of food. They feared it might betray their hiding-place; the man we saw was trying to reach it from within. There is another way out, they said, knowing that I could never find the place. To reach it, they swim beneath the water of the lagoon. We cannot get in from above; all our strength would not suffice to move the rocks. They are afraid to come out, but perhaps I might persuade them if I could show gifts such as they have never seen.' "The captain collected a few bright trifles among his men: a mirror or two, a gaudy bandanna handkerchief, a clasp knife with a glittering blade. The native returned to parley with the savages, and while he was gone the skipper gave instructions to his men--they were to scatter a little and lie hidden; if the wild people found courage to leave their cave, and they were not too many, they were to be seized and bound at once. "An hour passed. Then, without the warning crackle of a twig, two savages stepped from the bush and came toward the native who awaited them, holding out gifts and speaking encouragingly. They were naked save for light girdles of grass, and their shocks of hair were tied in high knots upon their heads. The captain whistled, and a moment later the two men of Iriatai lay triced and helpless on the ground. "The schooner sailed for Tahiti the same night, carrying the prisoners, whose evidence--the story, freely told, of how the wrecked brig had been plundered before she broke up, and how every soul aboard had been massacred--was placed before the French authorities. A few months later a man-of-war was sent to Iriatai, with one of the prisoners as interpreter, and the people of the island were carried off to Tahiti to be civilized. In the end, the chief was executed in reprisal for the island's crime, and his people were taken away to distant atolls of the group.