nd were
straightened out, and clubbed again; how they and their firelocks raked
at various inclinations like the masts of ships; and how an amateur
photographer reviewed, arrayed, and adjusted them, to see his
dispositions change before he reached the camera.

The business was funny to see; I do not know that it is graceful to
laugh at; and our report of these transactions was received on our
return with the shaking of grave heads.

The day had begun ill; eleven hours divided us from sunset; and at any
moment, on the most trifling chance, the trouble might begin. The
Wightman compound was in a military sense untenable, commanded on three
sides by houses and thick bush; the town was computed to contain over a
thousand stand of excellent new arms; and retreat to the ships, in the
case of an alert, was a recourse not to be thought of. Our talk that
morning must have closely reproduced the talk in English garrisons
before the Sepoy mutiny; the sturdy doubt that any mischief was in
prospect, the sure belief that (should any come) there was nothing left
but to go down fighting, the half-amused, half-anxious attitude of mind
in which we were awaiting fresh developments.

The kuemmel soon ran out; we were scarce returned before the king had
followed us in quest of more. Mr. Corpse was now divested of his more
awful attitude, the lawless bulk of him again encased in striped
pyjamas; a guardsman brought up the rear with his rifle at the trail;
and his majesty was further accompanied by a Rarotongan whalerman and
the playful courtier with the turban of frizzed hair. There was never a
more lively deputation. The whalerman was gapingly, tearfully tipsy; the
courtier walked on air; the king himself was even sportive. Seated in a
chair in the Ricks' sitting-room, he bore the brunt of our prayers and
menaces unmoved. He was even rated, plied with historic instances,
threatened with the men-of-war, ordered to restore the tapu on the
spot--and nothing in the least affected him. It should be done
to-morrow, he said; to-day it was beyond his power, to-day he durst not.
"Is that royal?" cried indignant Mr. Rick. No, it was not royal; had the
king been of a royal character we should ourselves have held a different
language; and royal or not, he had the best of the dispute. The terms
indeed were hardly equal; for the king was the only man who could
restore the tapu, but the Ricks were not the only people who sold drink.
He had but to hold