ed on the white beach of
Matelotas Lagoon to settle down as a trader for turtle-shell, Jinaban
was one of the three chiefs who ruled over the cluster of palm-clad
islets--the two others were his half-brothers, Jelik and Rao. All
three had met the white man as soon as he landed, and he and they had
exchanged gifts and vows of friendship after the manner of the people of
Las Matelotas.

But Jinaban, who was a man of violent temper, was bitterly aggrieved
when Palmer decided to build his house and trading station in the
village ruled over by his half-brother Jelik. He had long been anxious
to secure a white trader for his own village, and bitter words passed
between Jelik and Rao and himself. Palmer stood by and said nothing. He
had taken an instinctive dislike to Jinaban, whose reputation as a man
of a cruel and sanguinary nature had been known to him long before he
had come to settle in the Carolines. But Palmer was not a man to be
daunted by Jinaban's fierce looks and the bitter epithets he applied to
his half-brothers, whom he accused of "stealing" the white man from him.
He quietly announced his intention of standing to the agreement he had
made with Jelik; and the next day that chief's people set about building
a house for the trader. In a month the house was finished, and Palmer,
who meant to try the lagoon for pearl shell, and thought that his stay
on the island would be a long one, announced his intention of taking
a wife, and asked Jelik for a young girl named Letane. She was about
seventeen, and her gentle, amiable disposition had attracted him from
the first day he landed on the island. Calling the girl to him, Jelik
questioned her as to her inclinations, and she at once, in the most
innocent and charming manner, expressed her liking for the white
man, but said that her uncle Jinaban, who had gained some idea of her
feelings towards Palmer, had threatened to kill her if she dared
to marry him; for he (Jinaban) had determined that the people of
Ailap--Jelik's village--should not monopolise him altogether, and that a
wife should be chosen from his (Jinaban's) village.

Jelik's face instantly become grave. He knew the rancour of Jinaban's
feelings towards him, and dreaded to incur his further hatred, and soon
acquainted Palmer with his fears. The trader laughed at them, and said
that he would be dictated to by no man as regarded his choice of a wife,
and, drawing the smiling Letane to him, told the chief to make