Bihaura Was On The Beach Waiting For Us,
And She Led Charmian Into The House In Much The Same Fashion That
The Mother Leads In The Naughty Little Girl Who Has Been Playing In
Mud-Puddles.
It was a change of clothes and a dry and quiet smoke while kai-kai
was preparing.
Kai-kai, by the way, is the Polynesian for "food" or
"to eat," or, rather, it is one form of the original root, whatever
it may have been, that has been distributed far and wide over the
vast area of the Pacific. It is kai in the Marquesas, Raratonga,
Manahiki, Niue, Fakaafo, Tonga, New Zealand, and Vate. In Tahiti
"to eat" changes to amu, in Hawaii and Samoa to ai, in Ban to kana,
in Nina to kana, in Nongone to kaka, and in New Caledonia to ki.
But by whatsoever sound or symbol, it was welcome to our ears after
that long paddle in the rain. Once more we sat in the high seat of
abundance until we regretted that we had been made unlike the image
of the giraffe and the camel.
Again, when we were preparing to return to the Snark, the sky to
windward turned black and another squall swooped down. But this
time it was little rain and all wind. It blew hour after hour,
moaning and screeching through the palms, tearing and wrenching and
shaking the frail bamboo dwelling, while the outer reef set no a
mighty thundering as it broke the force of the swinging seas.
Inside the reef, the lagoon, sheltered though it was, was white with
fury, and not even Tehei's seamanship could have enabled his slender
canoe to live in such a welter.
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