cried Rua, “the mouth of Rua is true: Never a shark in the deep is nobler of soul than you. There was never a nobler foray, never a bolder plan; Never a dizzier path was trod by the children of man; And Rua, your evil-dealer through all the days of his years,

“Counts it honour to hate you, honour to fall by your spears.” And Rua straightened his back. “O Vais, a scheme for a scheme!” Cried Rua and turned and descended the turbulent stair of the stream, Leaping from rock to rock as the water-wagtail at home Flits through resonant valleys and skims by boulder and foam. p. 90And Rua burst from the glen and leaped on the shore of the brook, And straight for the roofs of the clan his vigorous way he took. Swift were the heels of his flight, and loud behind as he went Rattled the leaping stones on the line of his long descent. And ever he thought as he ran, and caught at his gasping breath, “O the fool of a Rua, Rua that runs to his death! But the right is the right,” thought Rua, and ran like the wind on the foam, “The right is the right for ever, and home for ever home. For what though the oven smoke? And what though I die ere morn? There was I nourished and tended, and there was Taheia born.” Noon was high on the High-place, the second noon of the feast; p. 91And heat and shameful slumber weighed on people and priest; And the heart drudged slow in bodies heavy with monstrous meals; And the senseless limbs were scattered abroad like spokes of wheels; And crapulous women sat and stared at the stones anigh With a bestial droop of the lip and a swinish rheum in the eye. As about the dome of the bees in the time for the drones to fall, The dead and the maimed are scattered, and lie, and stagger, and crawl; So on the grades of the terrace, in the ardent eye of the day, The half-awake and the sleepers clustered and crawled and lay; And loud as the dome of the bees, in the time of a swarming horde, A horror of many insects hung in the air and roared.

p. 90

p. 91

p. 92Rua looked and wondered; he said to himself in his heart: “Poor are the pleasures of life, and death is the better part.” But lo! on the higher benches a cluster of tranquil folk Sat by themselves, nor raised their serious eyes, nor spoke: Women with robes unruffled and garlands duly arranged, Gazing far from the feast with faces of people estranged; And quiet amongst the quiet, and fairer than all the fair, Taheia, the well-descended, Taheia, heavy of hair. And the soul of Rua awoke, courage enlightened his eyes, And he uttered a summoning shout and called on the clan to rise. Over against him at once, in the spotted shade of the 

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