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Then Sasa bore a hand and spoke beautifully of Rosalie, and how this unfortunate business of O’s head had divided her from Silver Tongue.

“If thou makest peace with his ainga,” said Sasa, “lo, what is there left for the white man to say? His bond is that of marriage; theirs, that of blood; and if the last be satisfied, what room is there for the former to complain?”

“But to be carried like a pig through the public street!” cried To’oto’o. “Preferable far would be death itself than that the son of chiefs should be thus degraded, and his name become a mock throughout the Tuamasanga!”

“O To’oto’o,” said Seumanutafa, “we know thee for a brave man, and that thou tookst this head in open battle, even as David did that of Goliath, and I swear thee thy honor shall remain undimmed for all the seeming appearance of humiliation. Besides, is it not written in the Holy Book that thou shouldst turn the other cheek to the smiter? Is it not said also that blessed is the peacemaker, and that the meek shall inherit the earth?”

“Weighty is my grief and pain,” said To’oto’o, “but what your Highness asks of me is impossible!”

“O To’oto’o,” said Seumanutafa, “this house is mine; this land is mine; the plantation i uta is mine also. Thou livest under the shadow of my power, and it is meet thou shouldst pay in service for the bounty thou hast so long enjoyed. First I spoke to thee as one brave man to another; then as a Christian to a fellow-Christian; now I command thee as thy chief, and verily thou shalt obey!”

“And I will add to that twenty, making it twenty-five,” I said.

“And Rosalie shall marry her Silver Tongue after all,” said Sasa.

To’oto’o argued a little more for form’s sake, and blustered somewhat about the Chief Justice, and how he would fight the matter out in the courts; but Seumanutafa’s tone grew peremptory, and the old fellow finally gave way all round. Then ‘ava was brought in, the arrangements made for the morrow, and we at length said tofa on the threshold, well pleased with our night’s work.

* * * * *

I wish you could have seen us next day going through the town in a little procession, headed by To’oto’o lashed to a pole and borne by a crowd of retainers. There was a flavor of the burial of Sir John Moore about the whole business–especially the hush–and not a funeral note being heard; we marching with measured tread, the municipal police bringing up the rear, and Seumanutafa in the center, nearly seven feet high, and bearing a white umbrella above his stately head.

Silver Tongue was standing in the front of his shop having an altercation with the Chief Justice about a ham (for he did a little in groceries as well as baked) as we hove in sight and began to file down the lane to Papalangi Mativa’s quarters behind the Southern Cross Bakery. I suppose Silver Tongue thought our man was hurt, or something, for he came running after us with a bottle of square-face and a packet of first aid to the wounded, elbowing his way excitedly through the crowd to where we had deposited To’oto’o at the feet of Papalangi Mativa. He was the most astonished baker in the South Seas as he saw who lay there in the jumble of beef and biscuit, and for a moment was too stupefied to let out a word.

I don’t mean to go into the speech-making part of the performance, for what between Seumanutafa and Papalangi Mativa, and the talking-man Sasa had lent me for the occasion, and a divinity student who happened along, and somebody who said he was Fale Upolu and spoke for the entire Group, and an aged faipule from the Union Islands who seemed to have some kind of a grievance about his father’s head, and the Chief Justice who had to butt in with the capitation tax–we were kept there a matter of three hours or more, until at last the principals officially made it up, To’oto’o was forgiven, and everything ended happily.