tleman present--her father, I suppose--who seemed nigh translated.
His eyes stood out of his head; "_Kaupoi, Kaupoi_--rich, rich!" ran on
his lips like a refrain; and he could not meet my eye but what he
gurgled into foolish laughter.

I might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family party gloating over
their new millions, and consider my strange day. I had tried and
rewarded the virtue of Terutak'. I had played the millionaire, had
behaved abominably, and then in some degree repaired my thoughtlessness.
And now I had my box, and could open it and look within. It contained a
miniature sleeping-mat and a white shell. Tamaiti, interrogated next day
as to the shell, explained it was not exactly Chench, but a cell, or
body, which he would at times inhabit. Asked why there was a
sleeping-mat, he retorted indignantly, "Why have you mats?" And this was
the sceptical Tamaiti! But island scepticism is never deeper than the
lips.

CHAPTER VII

THE KING OF APEMAMA

Thus all things on the island, even the priests of the gods, obey the
word of Tembinok'. He can give and take, and slay, and allay the
scruples of the conscientious, and do all things (apparently) but
interfere in the cookery of a turtle. "I got power" is his favourite
word; it interlards his conversation; the thought haunts him and is ever
fresh; and when he has asked and meditates of foreign countries, he
looks up with a smile and reminds you, "_I got power_." Nor is his
delight only in the possession, but in the exercise. He rejoices in the
crooked and violent paths of kingship like a strong man to run a race,
or like an artist in his art. To feel, to use his power, to embellish
his island and the picture of the island life after a private ideal, to
milk the island vigorously, to extend his singular museum--these employ
delightfully the sum of his abilities. I never saw a man more patently
in the right trade.

It would be natural to suppose this monarchy inherited intact through
generations. And so far from that, it is a thing of yesterday. I was
already a boy at school while Apemama was yet republican, ruled by a
noisy council of Old Men, and torn with incurable feuds. And Tembinok'
is no Bourbon; rather the son of a Napoleon. Of course he is well-born.
No man need aspire high in the isles of the Pacific unless his pedigree
be long and in the upper regions mythical. And our king counts
cousinship with most of the high families in the archipelago, and