It is bold water at the mouth of the bay; you can steer a ship about either sentinel, close enough to toss a biscuit on the rocks.  Thus it chanced that, as the tattooed man sat dozing and dreaming, he was startled into wakefulness and animation by the appearance of a flying jib beyond the western islet.  Two more headsails followed; and before the tattooed man had scrambled to his feet, a topsail schooner, of some hundred tons, had luffed about the sentinel and was standing up the bay, close-hauled.

The sleeping city awakened by enchantment.  Natives appeared upon all sides, hailing each other with the magic cry “Ehippy”—­ship; the Queen stepped forth on her verandah, shading her eyes under a hand that was a miracle of the fine art of tattooing; the commandant broke from his domestic convicts and ran into the residency for his glass; the harbour master, who was also the gaoler, came speeding down the Prison Hill; the seventeen brown Kanakas and the French boatswain’s mate, that make up the complement of the war-schooner, crowded on the forward deck; and the various English, Americans, Germans, Poles, Corsicans, and Scots—­the merchants and the clerks of Tai-o-hae—­deserted their places of business, and gathered, according to invariable custom, on the road before the club.

So quickly did these dozen whites collect, so short are the distances in Tai-o-hae, that they were already exchanging guesses as to the nationality and business of the strange vessel, before she had gone about upon her second board towards the anchorage.  A moment after, English colours were broken out at the main truck.

“I told you she was a Johnny Bull—­knew it by her headsails,” said an evergreen old salt, still qualified (if he could anywhere have found an owner unacquainted with his story) to adorn another quarter-deck and lose another ship.

“She has American lines, anyway,” said the astute Scots engineer of the gin-mill; “it’s my belief she’s a yacht.”

“That’s it,” said the old salt, “a yacht! look at her davits, and the boat over the stern.”

“A yacht in your eye!” said a Glasgow voice.  “Look at her red ensign!  A yacht! not much she isn’t!”

“You can close the store, anyway, Tom,” observed a gentlemanly German.  “Bon jour, mon Prince!” he added, as a dark, intelligent native cantered by on a neat chestnut.  “Vous allez boire un verre de biere?”

But Prince Stanilas Moanatini, the only reasonably busy human creature on the island, was riding hot-spur to view this morning’s landslip on the mountain road:  the sun already visibly declined; night was imminent; and if he would avoid the perils of darkness and precipice, and the fear of the dead, the haunters of the jungle, he must for once decline a hospitable invitation.  Even had he been minded to alight, it presently appeared there would be difficulty as to the refreshment offered.

“Beer!” cried the Glasgow voice.  “No such a thing; I tell you there’s only eight bottles in the club!  Here’s the first time I’ve seen British colours in this port! and the man that sails under them has got to drink that beer.”