The business was funny to see; I do not know that it is graceful to laugh at; and our report of these transactions was received on our return with the shaking of grave heads.

The day had begun ill; eleven hours divided us from sunset; and at any moment, on the most trifling chance, the trouble might begin.  The Wightman compound was in a military sense untenable, commanded on three sides by houses and thick bush; the town was computed to contain over a thousand stand of excellent new arms; and retreat to the ships, in the case of an alert, was a recourse not to be thought of.  Our talk that morning must have closely reproduced the talk in English garrisons before the Sepoy mutiny; the sturdy doubt that any mischief was in prospect, the sure belief that (should any come) there was nothing left but to go down fighting, the half-amused, half-anxious attitude of mind in which we were awaiting fresh developments.

The kummel soon ran out; we were scarce returned before the king had followed us in quest of more.  Mr. Corpse was now divested of his more awful attitude, the lawless bulk of him again encased in striped pyjamas; a guardsman brought up the rear with his rifle at the trail:  and his majesty was further accompanied by a Rarotongan whalerman and the playful courtier with the turban of frizzed hair.  There was never a more lively deputation.  The whalerman was gapingly, tearfully tipsy:  the courtier walked on air; the king himself was even sportive.  Seated in a chair in the Ricks’ sitting-room, he bore the brunt of our prayers and menaces unmoved.  He was even rated, plied with historic instances, threatened with the men-of-war, ordered to restore the tapu on the spot—­and nothing in the least affected him.  It should be done to-morrow, he said; to-day it was beyond his power, to-day he durst not.  ’Is that royal?’ cried indignant Mr. Rick.  No, it was not royal; had the king been of a royal character we should ourselves have held a different language; and royal or not, he had the best of the dispute.  The terms indeed were hardly equal; for the king was the only man who could restore the tapu, but the Ricks were not the only people who sold drink.  He had but to hold his ground on the first question, and they were sure to weaken on the second.  A little struggle they still made for the fashion’s sake; and then one exceedingly tipsy deputation departed, greatly rejoicing, a case of brandy wheeling beside them in a barrow.  The Rarotongan (whom I had never seen before) wrung me by the hand like a man bound on a far voyage.  ‘My dear frien’!’ he cried, ’good-bye, my dear frien’!’—­tears of kummel standing in his eyes; the king lurched as he went, the courtier ambled,—­a strange party of intoxicated children to be entrusted with that barrowful of madness.