much of her brother’s intelligence; the queen proper, to whom (and to whom alone) my wife was formally presented; and the favourite of the hour, a pretty, graceful girl, who sat with the king daily, and once (when he shed tears) consoled him with caresses.  I am assured that even with her his relations are platonic.  In the background figured a multitude of ladies, the lean, the plump, and the elephantine, some in sacque frocks, some in the hairbreadth ridi; high-born and low, slave and mistress; from the queen to the scullion, from the favourite to the scraggy sentries at the palisade.  Not all of these of course are of ’my pamily,’—­many are mere attendants; yet a surprising number shared the responsibility of the king’s trust.  These were key-bearers, treasurers, wardens of the armoury, the napery, and the stores.  Each knew and did her part to admiration.  Should anything be required—­a particular gun, perhaps, or a particular bolt of stuff,—­the right queen was summoned; she came bringing the right chest, opened it in the king’s presence, and displayed her charge in perfect preservation—­the gun cleaned and oiled, the goods duly folded.  Without delay or haste, and with the minimum of speech, the whole great establishment turned on wheels like a machine.  Nowhere have I seen order more complete and pervasive.  And yet I was always reminded of Norse tales of trolls and ogres who kept their hearts buried in the ground for the mere safety, and must confide the secret to their wives.  For these weapons are the life of Tembinok’.  He does not aim at popularity; but drives and braves his subjects, with a simplicity of domination which it is impossible not to admire, hard not to sympathise with.  Should one out of so many prove faithless, should the armoury be secretly unlocked, should the crones have dozed by the palisade and the weapons find their way unseen into the village, revolution would be nearly certain, death the most probable result, and the spirit of the tyrant of Apemama flit to rejoin his predecessors of Mariki and Tapituea.  Yet those whom he so trusts are all women, and all rivals.

There is indeed a ministry and staff of males:  cook, steward, carpenter, and supercargoes:  the hierarchy of a schooner.  The spies, ‘his majesty’s daily papers,’ as we called them, come every morning to report, and go again.  The cook and steward are concerned with the table only.  The supercargoes, whose business it is to keep tally of the copra at three pounds a month and a percentage, are rarely in the palace; and two at least are in the other islands.  The carpenter, indeed, shrewd and jolly old Rubam—­ query, Reuben?—­promoted on my last visit to the greater dignity of governor, is daily present, altering, extending, embellishing, pursuing the endless series of the king’s inventions; and his majesty will sometimes pass an afternoon watching and talking with Rubam at his work.  But the males are still outsiders; none seems to be armed, none is entrusted with a key; by dusk they are all usually departed from the palace; and the weight of the monarchy and of the monarch’s life reposes unshared on the women.