I think we had been on this South Sea buskin march for about three weeks when we arrived at a pagan citadel where we had quite an exciting adventure,—though, in good truth, we had many adventures that may not be recorded here. One night, after we had been tramping miles through breadfruit forests and by the rugged feet of lines of mountains, we came to a pagan citadel called Ta-e-mao. I shall never forget the surprise of the dusky inhabitants as we emerged from beneath the palms and I began to play an old Tahitian madrigal, while Pokara wailed out words that I did not understand. I was attired in duck pants and a brass-bound midshipman’s reefer jacket, and had on my head a large, dilapidated helmet hat. As for Pokara, though he was travel-stained and perspiration had washed much of the gold pigment from his ambrosial locks, he was a sight fitted to awaken admiration in all hearts. After the inhabitants had rushed from their huts and got over the first surprise of our sudden appearance, they were overcome with joy as I played on and Pokara sang.
I don’t exactly know what happened that night in Ta-e-mao, though I do know that the high chiefs and chiefesses treated us both with that punctilious etiquette always accorded troubadours in those South Sea mediæval ages. It appeared that we had arrived on the occasion of a great festival that was being given in honour of the visit of an aged king from one of the islands to the south. He was a remarkable-looking old fellow. He had a face like a gnarled tree-trunk carved to resemble a man. His teeth were white as snow. He wore side-whiskers and had a large seashell tied on to them. He was so stout that, when he went to drink out of the festival calabash, the royal attendants laid the receptacle down on the top of his corporation, then bowed and withdrew. He had brought with him his two daughters, or granddaughters, I forget which. They were comely-looking girls. One was even beautiful, according to our European ideas of that oft-misused word. Her thick, curly hair was artistically adorned with orange blossoms, and her attire consisted of a most attractively woven raiment of tappa-cloth that fell to her knees. She had fine dark eyes, luminous with a golden light, and they might well have fired the imagination of a less bold and outrageous youth than myself. Though I was not aware of it, Pokara well knew that she was _taboo-bride_, which means that she had just arrived of age, and, being a princess of a certain grand old dynasty, was entitled to propose to, and accept, the first high chief of royal blood, or whoever might please her eyes. In short, my confession is this: I made gallant advances to her, and she received them with an abandonment that was boundlessly refreshing and romantic, not only to myself but to the royal assemblage of high chiefs and the old king also. One thing will I say in palliation of all that I may have done, and that is, that I had not the slightest idea that the delicious cooling drink proffered to Pokara and myself with immense liberality was an intoxicating beverage. And I am sure that that drink had a good deal to do with the heathenish doings of Pokara and myself and the final episode that night in Ta-e-mao. Her name was Soovalao, and it is a positive fact that Soovalao stood before me, lifted one dusky arm, and sang a heathen bridal _himine_ to my eyes! The applause at this choice of hers was terrific! It is even possible that I, in some subconscious way, responded to the princess’s love-tokens and modest caresses. For I distinctly recall that I heard the tribal drums crash forth a mighty _fortissimo con passione_ as I gallantly accepted the beautifully-carved tortoise-shell comb from her hair, kissed her hand, and repeated some old Tahitian rite! But alas! in delicate compassion for those who would resent this sad confession, I will draw a veil of forgetfulness over the final heathen dance, when I played the fiddle and Pokara sang, and it seemed that a thousand dusky beauties of a phantom forest seraglio somersaulted beneath the moonlit palms!