Scott talks moderately of looking forward to a time of fighting ‘with a feeling that resembled pleasure.’  The resemblance seems rather an identity.  In modern life, contact is ended; man grows impatient of endless manoeuvres; and to approach the fact, to find ourselves where we can push an advantage home, and stand a fair risk, and see at last what we are made of, stirs the blood.  It was so at least with all my family, who bubbled with delight at the approach of trouble; and we sat deep into the night like a pack of schoolboys, preparing the revolvers and arranging plans against the morrow.  It promised certainly to be a busy and eventful day.  The Old Men were to be summoned to confront me on the question of the tapu; Muller might call us at any moment to garrison his bar; and suppose Muller to fail, we decided in a family council to take that matter into our own hands, The Land we Live in at the pistol’s mouth, and with the polysyllabic Williams, dance to a new tune.  As I recall our humour I think it would have gone hard with the mulatto.

Wednesday, July 24.—­It was as well, and yet it was disappointing that these thunder-clouds rolled off in silence.  Whether the Old Men recoiled from an interview with Queen Victoria’s son, whether Muller had secretly intervened, or whether the step flowed naturally from the fears of the king and the nearness of the feast, the tapu was early that morning re-enforced; not a day too soon, from the manner the boats began to arrive thickly, and the town was filled with the big rowdy vassals of Karaiti.

The effect lingered for some time on the minds of the traders; it was with the approval of all present that I helped to draw up a petition to the United States, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the Gilberts; and it was at this request that I added, under my own name, a brief testimony of what had passed;—­useless pains; since the whole reposes, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a pigeon-hole at Washington.

Sunday, July 28.—­This day we had the afterpiece of the debauch.  The king and queen, in European clothes, and followed by armed guards, attended church for the first time, and sat perched aloft in a precarious dignity under the barrel-hoops.  Before sermon his majesty clambered from the dais, stood lopsidedly upon the gravel floor, and in a few words abjured drinking.  The queen followed suit with a yet briefer allocution.  All the men in church were next addressed in turn; each held up his right hand, and the affair was over—­throne and church were reconciled.

CHAPTER VI—­THE FIVE DAYS’ FESTIVAL

Thursday, July 25.—­The street was this day much enlivened by the presence of the men from Little Makin; they average taller than Butaritarians, and being on a holiday, went wreathed with yellow leaves and gorgeous in vivid colours.  They are said to be more savage, and to be proud of the distinction.  Indeed, it seemed to us they swaggered in the town, like plaided Highlanders upon the streets of Inverness, conscious of barbaric virtues.