Then his son spoke.

“Not many days shall they laugh.  They shall be destroyed all, all, all of them.”

The king touched his son’s hand.

“Those are good words.  But be not too hasty.  Wait till the American comes again.  He will help with his men and guns.  But he is a greedy man.  Yet spare nothing; give him all the silver and gold money I have stored by for his return, and all the turtle-shell that can be gathered together.  And let there be not even one little child left in Mout or Leasse.”

Charlik was a lad or seventeen when his savage old father died, and for a year after his death he harried and distressed his people by his exactions.  All day long the men toiled at making coconut oil, and at night time they watched along the beaches for the hawk-bill turtle; the oil they put into huge butts, which stood in the king’s boat-sheds, and the costly turtle-shell was taken by the young ruler and locked up in the seamen’s chests which lined the inside wall of the great council-house.  And no man durst now fire a musket at a wild pig, for powder and ball had been made tapu—­such things were given up to the chiefs, lest they might be wasted, and every morning three young men climbed up the rugged side of Mont Buache, to keep a look-out for the ship whose captain would help their master to wreak a bloody vengeance upon the rebellious people of Leasse.

At the end of the sixteenth month of watching, a sail appeared coming from the southward, and the watchers on the mountain-top sped down to the king’s house, and sinking upon their knees in the courtyard of coral slabs, whispered their news to one of the king’s serving-men, who, with a musket in his hand and a cutlass girt around his naked waist, stood sentry before the youthful despot’s sleeping-room.

“Good,” said the king to Kanka, his head chief; “’tis surely the American Kesa,[13] for this is the month in which he said he would return.  Let the women make ready a great feast, and launch my three boats, so that if the wind fail, when the sun is high, they may help to drag the ship into Lele.”

Then came the sound of beating drums, and the long, mournful note of the conch-shells calling the wild people together to prepare for the ship.  Turtle were lifted from their walled-in prison holes on the reef, hogs were strangled, and the king’s wives went hither and thither among his slave women, bidding them hasten to kindle the ovens, whilst children went out into the great canework cage, wherein were hundreds of the king’s wild pigeons, and seizing the birds, began to pluck them alive.

An hour passed.  Charlik, sitting in a European chair, was watching the wild bustle and excitement around him in the courtyard, when his eye fell on the three messengers, who, with bent head and bended knees, were awaiting his further commands.

Beckoning to a young, light-skinned woman, who stood near him, he bade her bring him three of his best pearl-shell bonito hooks.  They were brought, and taking them from her, he threw them to the men.