Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/110

72 And when the child slept he laid it in the string bag, which was its bed, and sang on. And as he sang he beat with a hollow bamboo, which is tidoro, upon the ground, and drew it towards him, so that its voice was that of the rain drops which had fallen when the witches danced. Now, as he thus sang and beat with the tidoro, he saw not that his wife stood in the doorway watching him. But after a time he looked up, and was much afraid to see her standing there. Yet she spake never a word, but laid down her bag of taro and went to the spring to bathe.

And it came to pass that that night the woman laid a spell upon her husband, and he began to be ill, and after not many days he died. And then doubtless as he travelled on the way to Ioloa, he sang "Toroa" once more, for it is the song which the dead sing as they journey to their own land.

And in the village of Wamira there is but one man who can sing it, and he is Taukerobo. And when he is old and about to die he will give it to his son, for Taukerobo in like manner had it of his father, who alone knew it in the old days.