ard it, rose, called for a Winchester,
stepped without the royal palisade, and fired two shots in the air. A
shot in the air is the first Apemama warning; it has the force of a
proclamation in more loquacious countries; and his majesty remarked
agreeably that it would make his labourers "mo' bright." In less than
thirty minutes, accordingly, the men had mustered, the work was begun,
and we were told that we might bring our baggage when we pleased.

It was two in the afternoon ere the first boat was beached, and the long
procession of chests and crates and sacks began to straggle through the
sandy desert towards Equator Town. The grove of pandanus was practically
a thing of the past. Fire surrounded and smoke rose in the green
underbush. In a wide circuit the axes were still crashing. Those very
advantages for which the place was chosen, it had been the king's first
idea to abolish; and in the midst of this devastation there stood
already a good-sized maniap' and a small closed house. A mat was spread
near by for Tembinok'; here he sat superintending, in cardinal red, a
pith helmet on his head, a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, a wife
stretched at his back with custody of the matches and tobacco. Twenty or
thirty feet in front of him the bulk of the workers squatted on the
ground; some of the bush here survived; and in this the commons sat
nearly to their shoulders, and presented only an arc of brown faces,
black heads, and attentive eyes fixed on his majesty. Long pauses
reigned, during which the subjects stared and the king smoked. Then
Tembinok' would raise his voice and speak shrilly and briefly. There was
never a response in words; but if the speech were jesting, there came by
way of answer discreet, obsequious laughter--such laughter as we hear in
schoolrooms; and if it were practical, the sudden uprising and departure
of the squad. Twice they so disappeared, and returned with further
elements of the city; a second house and a second maniap'. It was
singular to spy, far off through the coco-stems, the silent oncoming of
the maniap', at first (it seemed) swimming spontaneously in the air--but
on a nearer view betraying under the eaves many score of moving naked
legs. In all the affair servile obedience was no less remarkable than
servile deliberation. The gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly
weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their
lives; and except for civility, they bestirred thems