"A little later he returned to the beach and aroused his crew; the men had fallen into a sort of stupor as they lay in the hot sun. The girl led them inland to the main village of her people, where they were received like gods dropped from the sky" Nichols leaned back in his chair, smiling crookedly. "The story of the advance of civilization" said he grimly "is the story of how savages have had to learn that white men aren’t gods. It’s an old story now—old and threadbare. It’s been pretty nearly completely learned.... These people among whom Devereux and his party had fallen had never seen a white man before. The story was all new and fresh to them. But owing to the wholly exceptional circumstances, its ending didn’t run according to the usual distressful formula. In fact, it resulted in a real victory. "The white men were very few, to begin with; and they couldn’t call on their governments, at the head of the organized world, to support and further with mechanical engines of destruction their various lusts and designs. Happily, three of them died within a week after they had landed, from the effects of that first drink of water and the intemperate eating that followed. The other three, however, rapidly recovered strength and peccancy, and began casting their eyes on the women of the village. You know the ripe, luxuriant beauty of the Marquesan women: these people were of the same root stock. It wasn’t many days before a number of violent outrages had been committed, which rang around the island—a couple of husbands murdered, maidens violated, and wives put to shame. "Now, these people were moral, of course, after the wise and simple code of nature; and the chief of the village was a man of character and decision. He didn’t waste time in parley; when the crimes were brought home beyond peradventure, and it was seen that the gods had turned to clay, he had the offending sailors taken into custody, and himself dispatched all three of them with the same club. Later their best parts were eaten at a feast of fairly legitimate rejoicing. Devereux was spared because he had behaved himself, and because of the love of the girl, who, it appears, was the chief’s daughter.