Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/193

Rh help me!" They sank, but soon came up again, Mairuer being in the state of "no skin, all meat". Two more turtle took him and dived deep. When Mairuer re-emerged he could just move his arms, being nearly dead. Plenty turtle came up again and exhibited Mairuer dead and red all over; then they carried him to another sandbank, "Garboi." The turtle buried him in the middle of the sandbank (3).

The men returned to Kerget sandbank and cried. Then they went home to make a funeral feast. That night they all anchored on a reef. The west wind, Giai, came; "it meet all canoe on reef." There were two brothers, each the headman of a canoe; "the rope of them two fellows strong." Some canoes broke their rope, and the brothers sang out, "You make fast to stern of our canoes." They all did it. The names of the two brothers were Wakai and Kuskus. The men "no sleep too much" on account of the wind and rain. They kept watch. At length the rope of Wakai's canoe broke, and Wakai sang out, "Brother, my rope broke; better we go back to the sand-bank." This they attempted to do, but, owing to the bad weather, they lost Kerget and made Garboi (4).

At daylight they went ashore and hauled their canoes on to the beach, only to find there was "no food, no water, no nothing"; and, though they had sufficient turtle, they were hard up for water. That day there was a dead calm, and the sun shone with a fierce heat. All the men put their mats over the canoes to serve as screens, and they had only salt-water to drink.

It so happened that Mairuer's friend had unwittingly discovered the ill-fated man's bones and put them together, and, without knowing whose bones they were, spoke to them, and asked them to show him some water (5). He then went into the canoe again and slept. In his sleep he dreamt Mairuer came to him in the likeness of a small paraquet-like bird, "the krīs krīs" who perched on the top of the canoe and made a chattering