But, my dear sir, I am the law."
The "music" began to be heard, a measured monotone of drums, a breath of
voices in a recitative chant, slightly impassioned by that vanished
gallon. The same old thing, indeed; one of the more than fifty-seven
varieties of the island _hula_. Then that had died away.
The light from the "place" grew among the higher leaves. And the trader,
becoming visible, halted. I saw him standing, listening.
"No, my dear sir, but that is a new thing."
He started forward. He stopped again. I heard it now. Out of the
familiar, hollow tautophony of drumbeats there began to emerge a thread
of actual melody--an untraditional rise and fall of notes--a tentative
attack as it were, on the chromatic scale of the west. No he-goat's skin
stretched on bamboo would do that.
We pushed on, curious. We came out into the "place." The scene under the
candlenut torches was as familiar to us as the Ohio River of Uncle Tom
to the small-town schoolboy; the meager rows of three-quarter naked
Kanakas, yellow with saffron and blue with tattooer's ink; the old women
in the background of sultry lights and enormous shadows compounding
endless balls of _popoi_ for the feast; the local and desceptered
chieftain squatting on his hams and guarding the vanished gallon between
his knees; this was all as it should have been.
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