The rajah displayed no sign of interest in our coming.  But the queen, who sat beside him in a purple sacque, was more accessible; and there was present an interpreter so willing that his volubility became at last the cause of our departure.  He had greeted us upon our entrance:- ’That is the honourable King, and I am his interpreter,’ he had said, with more stateliness than truth.  For he held no appointment in the court, seemed extremely ill-acquainted with the island language, and was present, like ourselves, upon a visit of civility.  Mr. Williams was his name:  an American darkey, runaway ship’s cook, and bar-keeper at The Land we Live in tavern, Butaritari.  I never knew a man who had more words in his command or less truth to communicate; neither the gloom of the monarch, nor my own efforts to be distant, could in the least abash him; and when the scene closed, the darkey was left talking.

The town still slumbered, or had but just begun to turn and stretch itself; it was still plunged in heat and silence.  So much the more vivid was the impression that we carried away of the house upon the islet, the Micronesian Saul wakeful amid his guards, and his unmelodious David, Mr. Williams, chattering through the drowsy hours.

CHAPTER II—­THE FOUR BROTHERS

The kingdom of Tebureimoa includes two islands, Great and Little Makin; some two thousand subjects pay him tribute, and two semi-independent chieftains do him qualified homage.  The importance of the office is measured by the man; he may be a nobody, he may be absolute; and both extremes have been exemplified within the memory of residents.

On the death of king Tetimararoa, Tebureimoa’s father, Nakaeia, the eldest son, succeeded.  He was a fellow of huge physical strength, masterful, violent, with a certain barbaric thrift and some intelligence of men and business.  Alone in his islands, it was he who dealt and profited; he was the planter and the merchant; and his subjects toiled for his behoof in servitude.  When they wrought long and well their taskmaster declared a holiday, and supplied and shared a general debauch.  The scale of his providing was at times magnificent; six hundred dollars’ worth of gin and brandy was set forth at once; the narrow land resounded with the noise of revelry:  and it was a common thing to see the subjects (staggering themselves) parade their drunken sovereign on the fore-hatch of a wrecked vessel, king and commons howling and singing as they went.  At a word from Nakaeia’s mouth the revel ended; Makin became once more an isle of slaves and of teetotalers; and on the morrow all the population must be on the roads or in the taro-patches toiling under his bloodshot eye.