refused, for the drink brewed from the kava root, and the ceremonies
connected with the brewing, tasting, and giving round, are almost a
religion in those islands, and many a man, in the old wild days, has
died for the insult of putting aside the proffered cup. Therefore the
King descended at once, tied his horses to a tree, and advanced to take
the cup from the hands of this unknown woman who understood royal
etiquette so well. It was his Majesty’s right to have his kava, and
indeed all his food and drink, proffered in this especial attitude; but
half-castes and whites were sometimes careless enough to forget the
honour.
He drank the great bowlful at a draught, as a king should, and, sending
the cup with a twirl to the ground, according to etiquette, cast a side
glance at the beautiful cup-bearer. He hated strangers and distrusted
foreigners, still....
“Will you not come in and rest, O Great Chief?” asked Vaiti in Lialian.
“Who are you?” said the King, still looking half away—but only half.
“Princess of Atiu, and daughter of the great English sea-captain Saxon,”
replied Vaiti, drawing herself up to her full height, and looking him
straight in the eyes. The King met the look full this time, and thought
that Litia’s eyes, Lialian though she was, were not so bright by half.
And if Mahina was fatter—as she certainly was—she never had such hair,
or such a coral-red mouth. And what a magnificent dress the magnificent
creature wore!
He knew at once who Vaiti was, when she mentioned her rank in Atiu, for
the chocolate-coloured island kings and queens understand each other’s
complicated genealogies quite as clearly as do their white compeers on
the other side of the world—and though Atiu was a broken,
half-depopulated place, annexed to the British Crown, its chiefs were of
ancient lineage and high repute. Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. hesitated
a moment—stretched out his hand—withdrew it—then stretched it out again,
and graciously offered it to Vaiti, as to an equal in blood.
Vaiti, glowing with gratification, yet had the happy intuition of
dropping on one knee and kissing the royal hand, European fashion. The
King understood it, and swelled with pleasure, remembering how Mahina
had had the impudence to chuck him under the chin when he bestowed a
gracious salute upon her inferior lips, and how Litia had objected
altogether to get off her horse when he was passing by, as Lialian royal
customs enjoined upon all riders ... What a nuisance they had both grown
to be, crying and battering at the palace gates, fighting over his
gifts, getting up trouble among their relatives—trouble that he now
began to fear might become so serious as to bring down the interference
of the British Crown. And every Pacific monarch knew what was the
inevitable next move, when that game had once begun! Good-bye to his
kingship, if once the British Lion laid a claw on Lialia.
“Will you not come in and rest, Great Chief?” said the humble voice of
the stranger again. And the King, still shy and distrustful, and
looking at Vaiti only out of the corners of his eyes, did condescend to
come in.
And the next day he rested again, and the day after that. It was
astonishing how easily driving seemed to tire his Majesty at this
period. And all the time the wedding preparations went forward, while
Mahina and Litia, with their respective factions, grew more and more
jealous of each other, and more and more enraged.
But there came a day at last, four days from the wedding, when the King
declared that he would make his final choice on the evening before the
marriage day, and would send a herald on that night to proclaim it
through the capital.
Ruru, the royal herald, who had never before had a chance to exercise
his office or wear his uniform, was extremely pleased. He got out his
finery at once—a Beefeater cap and tabard of crimson silk, worn with a
large silk sash, and bare legs—and began a dress rehearsal that lasted,
with intervals for food and sleep, until the evening of the
proclamation. At sunset he went up to the palace, received the paper
that contained the message, and strutting like a turkey, came out on to
the open green in front, where at least a thousand Lialians—half of them
Litia’s friends, and half of them Mahina’s—were collected. Mahina and
Litia themselves, each defiantly dressed in all the bridal finery she
could muster, stood in the forefront of the crowd, exchanging looks of
death and hatred. It had come to this with the two women now, that
either would have cheerfully died a death of slow torture, if by so
doing only she could have prevented the other from winning. That she
might miss the glories of the throne was not the prominent thought in
Litia’s mind—only that Mahina might secure them and triumph over her;
and the self-same fancy agitated the ample breast of her rival, as the
two stood in the cool twilight, within sound of the breakers on the
reef, waiting with choking anxiety for Ruru’s words.
“People of Liali!” read the herald impressively, striking an attitude,
with one bare leg advanced: “His Majesty King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea
III. of Liali, being sovereign by right divine, and the Lord’s Anointed,
also High Chief of all the Liali Islands as descendant of the Sacred
Lizard, has decided to marry, according to the custom of his
forefathers, and give the land of Liali an heir to our mighty crown.
The wedding will take place in the mission church to-morrow, at noon and
there will be a collection afterwards for expenses! If anyone comes
drunk to church, or puts nothing in the plate, he will be turned out.
His Majesty hereby announces that, in order to save war and dissension
among his loyal subjects, and to teach some princesses to pay him proper
respect, he has decided to give the honour of his hand to Princess
Vaiti, daughter of Princess Rangi of Atiu, deceased, and Captain Saxon,
of the schooner _Sybil_. God save the King, and you are all to go home
without making a row.”
It was a fine proclamation, but assuredly the order in the last clause
asked too much of Lialian humanity. No one attempted to obey it. The
news was received first in a dead silence of amazement, and then by a
storm of shrieks, howls, questions, a wild trampling and rushing to and
fro, and, last of all, by a Homeric roar of laughter. The Lialian
possesses a rough but reliable sense of humour, practical joking being
his especial delight; and it suddenly dawned upon the populace of Liali
that the King had played the most stupendous practical joke upon them
ever known in the history of the islands. Therefore these light-hearted
children of the sun, instead of raiding the palace in two separate
factions, lay down and rolled upon the grass, or held helplessly on to
one another, roaring with laughter. The utter disconcerting of Mahina
and Litia, now that all party feeling was removed from the matter,
further appealed to them as a jest of the finest sort, and witticisms
that would have made a trooper blush were hurled upon the disconsolate
maidens from all sides. Some few there were who frowned at the triumph
of a foreigner and a stranger; but Vaiti’s arts had succeeded in making
her popular, and the malcontents were borne down by the roar of public
amusement and assent. Vaiti herself, safely hidden in the Methodist
mission house, listened to the laughter far off, and felt well pleased.
She had not been very sure how matters might go, and had therefore, at a
bold stroke, won the favour of the Church by approaching the missionary,
and assuring him of the extreme purity of her Methodism (she was, if
anything, a pure heathen) and, in confidence, of the honour awaiting
her. The reverend gentleman, who had long sat on thorns by reason of
the power of the Seventh Day Adventist, Christian Science, and Original
Shaker missions in the islands, received her with delight, and handed
her over to the care of his wife, who shortly afterwards informed him
that the new light of the Church was, in her opinion, a “perfect
minx”—but that she supposed it was as well, under the circumstances, to
make to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, as the Bible
enjoined, and remain on intimate visiting terms with the palace. So
Vaiti spent the fateful evening under the secure protection of the
Church itself, and claimed the same creditable patronage for the day of
the wedding.
What of Mahina and Litia? The disappointed princesses, when the
proclamation was read out, turned and stared at each other like
tigresses robbed of a meal. Neither was going to be Queen of
Liali—neither was going to scratch her rival’s eyes out, and root up her
hair, for the crime of securing the coveted honour. The very bottom of
the world had dropped out—what was to follow?
For a moment they continued to stare, each scanning the other’s face
under a new light—the light of common feeling. Litia remembered that
she and Mahina had been brought up almost as sisters in the palace of
the late Queen. Mahina recalled the time when she had almost died of
measles, and Litia had nursed her through. They were both deceived, both
deserted, and the friends of one could never crow offensively over the
other now. The thought was mingled bitter-sweet, and the two burst out
crying, and dropped into each other’s arms, simultaneously vowing
threats of vengeance against the treacherous interloper, which—unbacked
by their war-like following of friends—they knew very well they would
never be able to execute. And the crowd dispersed as the sun went down.
* * * * *
The _Sybil_ made better time than was expected, after all. Her white
sails lifted against the blue, from behind the nearest island, just as
the royal wedding party commenced its gorgeous procession to the church.
Before the ceremony was ended, the schooner had made the harbour and
Saxon was ashore. He came upon an utterly deserted town, and saw not a
human being until he was halfway up to the church, outside of which he
perceived an immense crowd, unable to enter. Under a tree by the
wayside sat one of the English traders who had failed to get a place.
He greeted Saxon uproariously, and asked him if this wasn’t a proper go.
“What?” asked Saxon. “Which is he marrying?”
“Oh, crikey! he doesn’t know!” roared the trader—and fell back against
the tree, suffocating with laughter, and utterly declining to explain.
Saxon, cursing him for a silly fool, tramped on towards the church. The
procession was coming out now, and he wanted to see the show, for though
he might call the coffee-coloured Lialians niggers, he quite understood
the position of King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III., and the importance
to all the islands of his choice.
He got upon a bank to see the better, fixed his long-sighted sailor eyes
upon the chapel door, and saw a glittering vision emerge into the
sunlight, amidst the cries and cheers of the people. That was the King,
in a gorgeous uniform, with his crown on his head and a long velvet
mantle sweeping behind him ... and at his left hand stepped a tall,
stately, slender figure, also crowned, and dazzlingly dressed all in
glittering gold.... Not Mahina, certainly; not Litia either—Who was it,
then? It could never be—but it was—Vaiti!
Saxon staggered off the bank, sat down, jumped up again, and clapped his
hands.
“By ——, if it isn’t like her, through and through!” he cried. “By ——,
I’m proud of her! Queen of Liali! Queen of Liali! But——”
He stopped, and shook his head with a knowing laugh. He was not very
sober.
“But—God help the King!” he said.
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND ECCLES.