Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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Strolling with Hitihiti through the groves, we saw the flare of torchlight some distance ahead, and heard the beating of the small drums—a hollow, resonant sound with a strange measure. My friend’s head went up and his step quickened. Ahead of us, in a large clearing, there was a raised platform of hewn blocks of coral, about which no less than two or three hundred spectators were seated on the ground. The scene was brightly illuminated by torches of coconut leaves, bound in long bundles and held aloft by serving men, who lighted fresh ones as fast as the old burned out. As we took our places, two clowns, called faaata, were finishing a performance which raised a gale of laughter, and as they stepped off the platform six young women, accompanied by four drummers, trooped on to perform. These girls were of the lower order of society, and their dance was believed by the Indians to ensure the fertility of the crops. The dress of the dancers consisted of no more than a wreath of flowers and green leaves about their waists, and the dance itself, in which they stood in two lines of three, face to face, was of a nature so unbelievably wanton that no words could convey the least idea of it. But if the clowns had raised a gale of laughter, the dance raised a hurricane. Hitihiti laughed as heartily as the rest—the antics of one girl, in fact, brought the tears to his eyes and caused him to slap his thigh resoundingly. Presently the dance was over and, in the pause that followed, my taio informed me that we were now to see a dance of a very different kind.