The humour of the situation appealed to me, and, cold and dripping though I was, I shouted with laughter. And you will admit the thing _was_ fairly humorous. Imagine us, if you can, standing there, stripped of our worldly goods, naked and shivering--Puketawa, a prize convert from a mission station, and I, a Christian--brought to such a pass by miserable heathen wizardry that we had been glad to submit ourselves to the sorceries of the arch-wizard himself to escape the consequences of the spells that had been cast over us! All the same, the effect of the hanky-panky on Puketawa was truly wonderful. Moribund before the arrival of the “tohunga,” he was a new man after the performance. He laughed with me, his dull eyes again became clear and bright, and he got quite chirpy; while, laugh as you will, even I, who had submitted to go through it only on Puketawa’s account and for the sake of trade, must confess to a sense of spiritual well-being to which I had been a stranger for some days. With trade clothing from the store we clad our nakedness. The baptism business had given us an appetite, and we soon rummaged out a cold collation. Maoris are always fair trenchermen, but I never saw one put away such a feed as Puketawa did then. Eat? Long after I had finished I sat and watched the stuff disappearing--tinned salmon, potted beef, spiced ox-tongue, dried fish, ham and chicken, pine-apple, Worcester sauce. King Solomon in all his glory never had such an appetite. Next day, as though to make amends for the inconvenience we had suffered, and show that the popular feeling was not directed against us but against the “tapu” alone, the Maoris flocked to the store with cash and barter, and I did the best day’s trade of my life. In two days they had built me a better house than that destroyed. It was as if the ceremony of purification had conferred a sort of brotherhood upon me, and I found myself on a better footing with them than ever before. I never discovered, however, how they learnt of our transgression. To this day the question of how the “tohunga” became aware of our accidental presence on the sacred island remains a mystery. That we were alone there I am certain. Under the circumstances of the storm and the thick mist, it is equally certain our presence was not observed from the shore. The “kainga” was six miles distant, a range of hills intervening. It was a black night; Maoris are chary of being out after dark. Altogether the possibility of our having been seen may be dismissed. Puketawa, of course, leaned to the supernatural. Old stories of occultism practised by the priests, of spiritualism and uncanny mental telepathy with the spirit world, he told for my benefit. I do not like mystery, and have no leaning towards the occult, but, dismissing all this as unworthy of credence, there yet remains the query of how the “tohunga” knew of our “breaking of the ’wahi-tapu’” (breach of the sanctity of a burial-place).