this be all, it should not
trouble us long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remains
for her only to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded prejudice,
and allow to him, who was sole king before the plenipotentiaries
assembled, and who would be sole king to-morrow if the Berlin Act could
be rescinded, a fitting share of rule. The future of Samoa should lie
thus in the hands of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are
already fixed. Great concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group,
in his view, is but as a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns
has bled on too many august scenes of victory to remember for ever a
blundering skirmish in the plantation of Vailele. It is to him--to the
sovereign of the wise Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,--that I make my
appeal.

_May_ 25, 1892.

ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS

TO

THREE OLD SHIPMATES AMONG THE ISLANDS

HARRY HENDERSON
BEN HIRD
JACK BUCKLAND

THEIR FRIEND

R. L. S.

THE BEACH OF FALESA

(BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A SOUTH SEA TRADER)

THE BEACH OF FALESA

CHAPTER I

A SOUTH SEA BRIDAL

I saw that island first when it was neither night nor morning. The moon
was to the west, setting, but still broad and bright. To the east, and
right amidships of the dawn, which was all pink, the day-star sparkled
like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our faces, and smelt strong of
wild lime and vanilla: other things besides, but these were the most
plain; and the chill of it set me sneezing. I should say I had been for
years on a low island near the line, living for the most part solitary
among natives. Here was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be
quite strange to me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and the
rare smell of them, renewed my blood.

The captain blew out the binnacle lamp.

"There!" said he, "there goes a bit of smoke, Mr. Wiltshire, behind the
break of the reef. That's Falesa, where your station is, the last
village to the east; nobody lives to windward--I don't know why. Take my
glass, and you can make the houses out."

I took the glass; and the shores leaped nearer, and I saw the tangle of
the woods and the breach of the surf, and the brown roofs and the black
insides of houses peeped among the trees.

"Do you catch a bit of white there to the east'ard?" the captain
continued. "That's your house. Coral built, stands high, verandah