before me on the floor. "I belong you all-e-same pig!" she cried.




CHAPTER II. THE BAN.


I CAME on the verandah just before the sun rose on the morrow. My
house was the last on the east; there was a cape of woods and
cliffs behind that hid the sunrise. To the west, a swift cold
river ran down, and beyond was the green of the village, dotted
with cocoa-palms and breadfruits and houses. The shutters were
some of them down and some open; I saw the mosquito bars still
stretched, with shadows of people new-awakened sitting up inside;
and all over the green others were stalking silent, wrapped in
their many-coloured sleeping clothes like Bedouins in Bible
pictures. It was mortal still and solemn and chilly, and the light
of the dawn on the lagoon was like the shining of a fire.

But the thing that troubled me was nearer hand. Some dozen young
men and children made a piece of a half-circle, flanking my house:
the river divided them, some were on the near side, some on the
far, and one on a boulder in the midst; and they all sat silent,
wrapped in their sheets, and stared at me and my house as straight
as pointer dogs. I thought it strange as I went out. When I had
bathed and come back again, and found them all there, and two or
three more along with them, I thought it stranger still. What
could they see to gaze at in my house, I wondered, and went in.