It is true that in Hawaii and Tonga conquerors made themselves kings, but not there or in Samoa, Tahiti, or the Marquesas were kings supreme rulers until the whites established them for their own trade purposes and sold them firearms by which to maintain their power.

That day of the whites had passed in Vait-hua.  The chief now maintained his authority by the fondness of his people alone.  Generous he was, and gentle, yet I minded that he had bitten off the nose of Severin, the French gendarme, when the namu had made him mad.  Now whether guided by pride in his discipline or by memory of evil-doing repented, he was strict in his enforcement of the prohibition of cocoanut toddy, and sobriety made the days and nights peaceful.

Early in the mornings I called “Kaoha!” from my paepae to Mrs. Seventh Man, who came each day from her bath in the via puna attired in her earrings only.

Sauntering along the bank of the brook still dripping from the spring, her wet black hair clinging to her shapely back and her tawny skin glistening in flickering light and shade, she was for all the world my conception of Mother Eve before even leaves were modesty.  Her nudity was a custom only at this time, for when she reappeared to aid Exploding Eggs in preparing my breakfast she always wore a scarlet pareu and her hair was done like Bernhardt’s.

Vanquished Often appeared with her aunt, carefully dressed in spotless, diaphanous tunic, fresh flowers in her hair, a treasured pink silk garter clasping her rounded arm.  “Big White Brother,” she called me with pride, though often I saw a sad wonder in her great eyes as she squatted near, silently watching me.  Her possessive ways were pretty to see as she walked close by my side on the trail from my cabin to the beach, while Exploding Eggs regarded her jealously, insisting on his prerogative as Tueni Oki Kiki, Keeper of the Golden Bed, the glittering magnificence of which he described minutely to her.

We arrived at a merry scene upon the beach.  Women and children were in the surf, or on rocks under the cliffs, fishing for popo, the young of uua.  With bamboo poles twenty feet long and lines of even greater length, we stood up to our necks in the sea and threw out the hook baited with a morsel of shrimp.  The breakers tumbled us about, the lines became tangled, amid gales of laughter and a medley of joyous shouts.  Tiring of fishing, Vanquished Often and I would breast the creaming waves side by side, to turn far out and dash in on the breakers, overturning all but the wary.  Or a group of us, climbing high on the cliffs, would fling ourselves again and again into the sea, turning in mid-air, life and delight quickening every muscle.

Wearying of this sport, we embarked in canoes, fishing or sailing, and many small adventures we had, for the younger and more daring spirits delighted in scaring me into expostulation or the silence of the condemned and then saving my life by a hair’s-breadth.