In my quality of Frenchman, I would have wished to call in civilized costume upon a civilized household.

But what would you have?
Necessity knows no law.

I am compelled to envelope myself in my savage robe of office as a Polynesian god--a robe of office which, for the rest, is not without an interest of its own for the scientific ethnologist.

It belongs to me especially as King of the Birds, and in it, in effect, is represented at least one feather of each kind or color from every part of the body of every species of bird that inhabits Boupari.

I thus sum up, _pour ainsi dire_, in my official costume all the birds of the island, as Tu-Kila-Kila, the very high god, sums up, in his quaint and curious dress, the land and the sea, the trees and the stones, earth and air, and fire and water." Familiarity with danger begets at last a certain callous indifference.
Muriel was surprised in her own mind to discover how easily they could chat with M.Peyron on such indifferent subjects, with that awful doom of an approaching death hanging over them so shortly.