"Are all the others away ?" he asked, in a frightened tone.

"Fire and Water would denounce me to all my people if once they found I had told a taboo to a woman.

And as for you, they would take you, because you knew it, and would pull your flesh from your bones with hot stone pincers!" Ula rose and looked about her at the door of the tent.

She nodded thrice; then she glided back, serpentine, and threw herself gracefully, in a statuesque pose, on the native mat beside him.

"Here, drink some more kava," she cried, holding a bowl to his lips, and wheedling him with her eyes.