left. Then we all started off for the
Southern Cross Bakery, and, as we walked slowly and naturally, attracted
a good deal of attention; and as we told every one we met where we were
going to, and why, we grew and grew until, as I looked down the
procession, I couldn't see the end of it. The Chief Justice was sucked
in. Likewise the President. Marquardt, the chief of police, joined us;
Haggard, the land commissioner; some Mormon missionaries; two lay
brothers from the school; a lot of passengers from the mail boat, with
handkerchiefs stuck into their sweaty collars; Captain Hufnagel on
horseback, with a small army of Guadalcanaar laborers; half the synod of
the Wesleyan church in white _lavalavas_ and hymn-books; a picnic party
that had just returned (not wholly sober) from the Papase'ea;
blue-jackets from the _Sperber_; blue-jackets from the _Walleroo_; three
survivors of the British bark _Windsor Castle_, burned at sea; a German
scientist in Jaeger costume, with blue spectacles and a butterfly net;
six whole boatloads of an _aumoenga_ party from Manu'a; a lot of
political prisoners on parole; two lepers, and Charley Taylor!

It was well we had brought Marquardt with us, for he and his police
caught the humor of the thing, and on reaching the bakery formed us up
in a great hollow square with one side blank for Silver Tongue, who
stood and gazed at us transfixed from the shade of his veranda. Then
Seumanutafa, Sasa, Scanlon, Tautala, To'oto'o, and I broke ranks and
marched up to him.

"Old man," I said, "if you were to think a year you'd never guess what
brought us here to-day!"

"It's O's head again," he said, grinding his teeth and casting a
vitriolic glance at To'oto'o, "and if there was any law or order in this
Godforsaken land"--he looked daggers at the Chief Justice as he said
this--"that fellar would have got short jift for murdering my
fader-in-law's aunt's son!"

"He didn't murder him," I said.

Silver Tongue's jaw fell. He looked at us quite overcome. For a minute
he couldn't say a word.

"Oh, but he deed!" he said at last.

"It was Tautala that killed him," I said, indicating the young man we
had brought from Mulinu'u, "and it turns out he sold your relation's
head to To'oto'o for seven dollars and a music box." At this, smiling
from ear to ear, Tautala held up the music box to public view, and would
have set it going had not something fortunately caught in the works.

"It's a lie!" gasped Silver To