It was yet another instance of the sheer “cussedness” of things in general. There were half a hundred islands to choose from; yet malignant Fate, aided by that confounded fog, must needs fix upon Taupiri on which to cast us up--Taupiri, the sacred island, where for centuries the bones of the chiefs had been deposited. It was consecrated to the “mana” (holiness) of their spirits, and frightfully “tapu.” No man might put foot on it and live. And we had not only passed the night there, but--horror of horrors!--had eaten food cooked with wood from the sacred tree! The loose stones, among which we had stumbled in the foggy night and had kicked from our path, were the skulls of the great dead. There was no doubt about it--we were “tapued” up to our necks. That it was purely accidental and through no fault of our own didn’t in the least matter. From the Maori point of view, indeed, it made the case infinitely worse. For Puketawa, whose civilization was, after all, only skin-deep, it was likely to prove a most serious affair. Brought thus face to face with the terrors of ancient superstition, his white man’s education fell to pieces. His mind swung back to the faith of his forbears and the fears of the old beliefs gripped his heart. He was for fleeing the accursed place at once, but, “tapu” or no “tapu,” I wasn’t going without breakfast. Puketawa refused food. Already I fancied he was getting “pourri” (depressed)--no light thing with a Maori, for I had known them before then to die of sheer melancholy. I realized that the accident was bad for me also if the thing should get known. I did not fancy being ostracized by the tribe, my goods confiscated and destroyed, and my house and store burnt by way of purification and to avert the anger of the gods. [Illustration: “THERE HE STOOD, A LIVING EMBODIMENT OF TERROR.”] Though, on the way home, I was angry and contemptuous by turns, Puketawa refused to be comforted. To my ridicule or reproaches he answered only with a sickly smile. “No good,” he said. He was “tapu” right enough--could feel the spell “working inside him.” In vain I pointed out that the island was six miles distant from the “kainga,” hidden by a bend of the river, and that we had landed at night in a dense fog and had left again before sunrise. “Ah!” he answered. “Te tohunga very wise. He know wi’out seein’.”