alk covered by the sound of the surf
and the rattle of the wind among the palms, continued to speak
guardedly, softening his silver voice (which rang loud enough in the
chorus) and looking about him like a man in fear of spies. The strange
thing is that I should have beheld him no more. In any other island in
the whole South Seas, if I had advanced half as far with any native, he
would have been at my door next morning, bringing and expecting gifts.
But Te Kop vanished in the bush for ever. My house, of course, was
unapproachable; but he knew where to find me on the open beach, where I
went daily. I was the _Kaupoi_, the rich man; my tobacco and trade were
known to be endless: he was sure of a present. I am at a loss how to
explain his behaviour, unless it be supposed that he recalled with
terror and regret a passage in our interview. Here it is:

"The king, he good man?" I asked.

"Suppose he like you, he good man," replied Te Kop: "no like, no good."

That is one way of putting it, of course. Te Kop himself was probably no
favourite, for he scarce appealed to my judgment as a type of industry.
And there must be many others whom the king (to adhere to the formula)
does not like. Do these unfortunates like the king? Or is not rather the
repulsion mutual? and the conscientious Tembinok', like the
conscientious Braxfield before him, and many other conscientious rulers
and judges before either, surrounded by a considerable body of
"grumbletonians"? Take the cook, for instance, when he passed us by,
blue with rage and terror. He was very wroth with me; I think by all the
old principles of human nature he was not very well pleased with his
sovereign. It was the rich man he sought to waylay: I think it must have
been by the turn of a hair that it was not the king he waylaid instead.
And the king gives, or seems to give, plenty of opportunities; day and
night he goes abroad alone, whether armed or not I can but guess; and
the taro-patches, where his business must so often carry him, seem
designed for assassination. The case of the cook was heavy indeed to my
conscience. I did not like to kill my enemy at second-hand; but had I a
right to conceal from the king, who had trusted me, the dangerous secret
character of his attendant? And suppose the king should fall, what
would be the fate of the king's friends? It was our opinion at the time
that we should pay dear for the closing of the well; that our breath was
in the king's no