“Well,” said Otway, “this is what occurred.  I was ashore in the village, buying and weighing the yams, the skipper was lending me a hand, and everything was going on bully, when Mataafa and his chiefs sent an invitation to us to come up to his house and drink kava.  Of course such an invitation from the native point of view was a great honour; and then, besides that, it was good business to keep in with old Mataafa, who had just given the Germans a thrashing at Vailele, and was as proud as a dog with two tails.  So, although I hate kava, I accepted the invitation with ‘many expressions of pleasure,’ and felt sure that as the old fellow knew me of old, and I knew he wanted to buy some rifles, that I should get the bulk of a bag of sovereigns his mongrel, low-down American secretary was carrying around.  So oft went the skipper and I, letting the yams stand over till we returned; the barque was lying about a mile off the beach.  Mataafa was very polite to us, and during the kava drinking I found out that he had about three hundred sovereigns, and wanted to see the Martini-Henrys we had on board.  Of course I told him that it would be a serious business for the ship if he gave us away—­imprisonment in a dreadful dungeon in Fiji, if not hanging at the yard-arm or a man-of-war—­and the old cock winked his eye and laughed.  Then, as time was valuable, we at once concocted a plan to get the rifles—­fifty—­ashore without making too much of a show.  Well, among some of the women present there were two great swells, one was the taupo, or town maid, of Palaulae in Savaii, and the other was a niece of Mataafa himself.  These two, accompanied by a lot of young women of Manono, were to go off on board the barque in our boats, ostensibly to pay their respects to the white lady on board, and invite her on shore, so as to get her out of the way; then I was to pass the arms out of the stern ports into some canoes which would be waiting just as it became dark.  About five o’clock they started off in one boat, leaving me and the skipper to follow in another.  I had sent a note off to the mate telling him all about the little game, and to be mighty polite to the two chief women, who were to be introduced to Miss Weidermann, give the old devil some presents of mats, fruits, and such things, and ask her to come ashore as Mataafa’s guest.

“Well, something had gone wrong with the Weidermann’s temper; for when the women came on board she was sulking in her cabin, and refused to show her vinegary face outside her state-room door.  Thinking she would get over her tantrum in a few minutes, the mate invited the two Samoan ladies and their attendants down into the cabin, where they awaited her appearance, behaving themselves, of course, very decorously, it being a visit of ceremony.

“Presently Old Cat-face opened her door, and then, without giving the native ladies time to utter a word, she launched out at them in her bastard-mongrel Samoan-Tongan.  The first thing she said was that she knew the kind of women they were, and what had brought them on board!  How dared such brazen, shameless cattle come into the cabin!  Into the same cabin as a white lady!  The bold, half-naked, disgraceful hussies, etc., etc.  And then she capped the thing by calling to the steward to come and drive them out!