ing
Tulifau, otherwise Tui Tulifau, continued to dispense the high justice
and the low in the frame-house palace built for him by a Sydney trader
out of California redwood. Not only was Tui Tulifau every inch a king,
but he was every second a king. When he had ruled fifty-eight years and
five months, he was only fifty-eight years and three months old. That
is to say, he had ruled over five million seconds more than he had
breathed, having been crowned two months before he was born.

He was a kingly king, a royal figure of a man, standing six feet and
a half, and, without being excessively fat, weighing three hundred and
twenty pounds. But this was not unusual for Polynesian "chief stock."
Sepeli, his queen, was six feet three inches and weighed two hundred
and sixty, while her brother, Uiliami, who commanded the army in the
intervals of resignation from the premiership, topped her by an inch and
notched her an even half-hundredweight. Tui Tulifau was a merry soul, a
great feaster and drinker. So were all his people merry souls, save in
anger, when, on occasion, they could be guilty even of throwing dead
pigs at those who made them wroth. Nevertheless, on occasion, they could
fight like Maoris, as piratical sandalwood traders and Blackbirders in
the old days learned to their cost.

II

Grief's schooner, the _Cantani_, had passed the Pillar Rocks at the
entrance two hours before and crept up the harbour to the whispering
flutters of a breeze that could not make up its mind to blow. It was
a cool, starlight evening, and they lolled about the poop waiting till
their snail's pace would bring them to the anchorage. Willie Smee, the
supercargo, emerged from the cabin, conspicuous in his shore clothes.
The mate glanced at his shirt, of the finest and whitest silk, and
giggled significantly.

"Dance, to-night, I suppose?" Grief observed.

"No," said the mate. "It's Taitua. Willie's stuck on her."

"Catch me," the supercargo disclaimed.

"Then she's stuck on you, and it's all the same," the mate went on. "You
won't be ashore half an hour before you'll have a flower behind your
ear, a wreath on your head, and your arm around Taitua."

"Simple jealousy," Willie Smee sniffed. "You'd like to have her
yourself, only you can't."

"I can't find shirts like that, that's why. I'll bet you half a crown
you won't sail from Fitu-Iva with that shirt."

"And if Taitua doesn't get it, it's an even break Tui Tulifau does,"
Gri