“I’ll have that off him before he is a week older,” said Bickley, surveying this deformity with great professional interest. On they came, the girls with the platters walking ahead. On one of these were what looked like joints of baked pork, on another some plantains and pear-shaped fruits. They knelt down and offered these to us. We contemplated them for a while. Then Bickley shook his head and began to rub his stomach with appropriate contortions. Clearly they were quick-minded enough for they saw the point. At some words the girls brought the platters to the chief and others, who took from them portions of the food at hazard and ate them to show that it was not poisoned, we watching their throats the while to make sure that it was swallowed. Then they returned again and we took some of the food though only Bickley ate, because, as I pointed out to him, being a doctor who understood the use of antidotes; clearly he should make the experiment. However, nothing happened; indeed he said that it was very good. After this there came a pause. Then suddenly Bastin took up his parable in the Polynesian tongue which—to a certain extent—he had acquired with so much pains. “What is this place called?” he asked slowly and distinctly, pausing between each word. His audience shook their heads and he tried again, putting the accents on different syllables. Behold! some bright spirit understood him and answered: “Orofena.” “That means a hill, or an island, or a hill in an island,” whispered Bickley to me. “Who is your God?” asked Bastin again. The point seemed one upon which they were a little doubtful, but at last the chief answered, “Oro. He who fights.” “In other words, Mars,” said Bickley. “I will give you a better one,” said Bastin in the same slow fashion. Thinking that he referred to himself these children of Nature contemplated his angular form doubtfully and shook their heads. Then for the first time one of the men who was wearing a mask and a wicker crate on his head, spoke in a hollow voice, saying: “If you try Oro will eat you up.” “Head priest!” said Bickley, nudging me. “Old Bastin had better be careful or he will get his teeth into him and call them Oro’s.” Another pause, after which the man in a feather cloak with the growth on his neck that a servant was supporting, said: “I am Marama, the chief of Orofena. We have never seen men like you before, if you are men. What brought you here and with you that fierce and terrible animal, or evil spirit which makes a noise and bites?” Now Bickley pretended to consult me who stood brooding and majestic, that is if I can be majestic. I whispered something and he answered: “The gods of the wind and the sea.” “What nonsense,” ejaculated Bastin, “there are no such things.” “Shut up,” I said, “we must use similes here,” to which he replied: “I don’t like similes that tamper with the truth.” “Remember Neptune and Aeolus,” I suggested, and he lapsed into consideration of the point.