"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man. Aavehie is the god of fishermen, who was always propitiated by intending anglers in the polytheistic days and who still has power. 10
There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there been one for many years. There was nothing to do but call the _tatihi_, or native doctor, an aged and shriveled man whose whole body was an intricate pattern of tattooing and wrinkles. He came at once, and with his clawlike 15 hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken's wound and gummed them in place with the juice of the _ape_, a bulbous plant like the edible taro. Red Chicken must have suffered keenly, for the _ape_ juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made no protest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over 20 the wound the _tatihi_ applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of tapa cloth, folded in surgical fashion.
1. What were the author and Red Chicken doing at the outset? Read the lines where the adventure begins.
2. Like most real adventures this one was all over in a moment. What happened? Why did it occur?
3. Spell, pronounce, and explain: phosphorescence, lure, stationary, propitiated, polytheistic, tattooing, caustic.
(Taken from O'Brien's _White Shadows in the South Seas_ by permission of the publishers, The Century Co.)
No man has written more stirring tales, in prose or verse, in recent times than Rudyard Kipling. Born (1865) in Bombay, India, the son of an Englishman in the civil service, he became steeped in the ways of the men of the East. Consequently his first writings were sketches of Anglo-Indian life, written for Indian newspapers with which he was connected. Then followed a series of books on Eastern themes, some in prose and others in verse. Among these was _Departmental Ditties_ from which the following narrative poem is taken. Read it through first to get the story and the atmosphere in mind.
Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side, And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride: He has lifted her out of the stable door between the dawn and the day, 5 And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.
Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides: "Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal 10 hides?"