Milburn was almost mad with rage and itching to get back to the ship to have a reckoning with the Yankee skipper. I saw that he was, after all, not the kind of man to be done, and that he believed in getting his money’s worth and being boss in his own line, notwithstanding his theories on socialism. We both grasped Tembinok’s hand and accepted his kind invitation to call at the palace the next day; and then the high chiefs, wondering at the whole business, rolled their banana-leaf cigarettes between their fingers, bowed and led us out of the royal presence and through the gates of the palace stockades.
We hurried down to the shore; all was silent except a few natives singing as they took a moonlight bathe in the waves. We looked across the lagoon and both stared; the ship was gone! Seaward, like a bird with many wings, fast disappearing under the brilliant moon, we saw afar the Eldorado taking advantage of the breeze; for the skipper was crowding on all sail. He had flown!
I will not tell you what Milburn and I said. Heaven will forgive us; it was unprintable. All our belongings were on board too! We were both stranded, and the skipper had made the most profitable voyage of his life. We told the natives to keep a lookout for the next trading-boat and, side by side, without saying a word, but deep in thought, we went back to the palace.
Tembinok had been thinking the matter over in our absence and was in a great rage at being impersonated. He was a wonderful-looking old fellow, with bright eyes, a keen yet half-humorous expression and slightly full lips. He carried himself as though he was the one and only king on earth. He at once invited us to stop till a boat came and gave us a chance to go away. It was well for the skipper that he had gone, for I really believe the ship would have been bombarded that same night by the native King’s battalions, so great was the royal rage. We gave Tembinok a description of the sham king, and then some natives, who had come aboard, accepted a bribe and told all; he was a Marquesan chief who then lived on the neighbouring Isle Kuria and was a deadly enemy of Tembinok. A war council was held and things began to look much brighter than I expected for Milburn, who promised to give me a hundred pounds if I stuck to him and helped him get some of his deposit back, and also a bit of his own back off that fraudulent king.
That night we stopped at the palace. Poor old Milburn looked pale and almost cried when he thought of how he had been done, and I could see that he had set his heart on getting the island. Tembinok turned out a good sort; the fierce expression of his countenance had changed to one of majestic benevolence, as he gazed upon us and we humbly sat on mats before him. “You buy island?” he said, and then with a most conspicuous attempt at concealing his cynical amusement solemnly gave orders to his head wives, who sang to him and fanned off the droves of mosquitoes that attacked his eyes and face.
The palace contained many rooms, through which crept barefooted native girls busily attending to the numerous requirements of the head queen. She was a fat, oily-looking woman, of about forty years of age, who put on terrible side and blinked her eyes as we surveyed her respectfully. Two eunuchs kept blowing cooling breath on to her perspiring body, for the little wind that blew was extremely hot.
We slept nearly all next day and then went to see the neighbouring villages; the natives had comfortable wooden homes (maniaps) built on posts, open at the sides to let the wind in. We soon tired, and again returned that night to the palace and were then allowed, for the first time, to go over the various rooms. I was astonished at all we saw, for it was furnished well with native and European furniture. It seemed hard to believe that the memory of the King could go back to cannibalism and strangulating festivals; indeed, such things were still practised in moderation. On the walls hung clubs, muzzle-loading rifles and many murderous weapons of savage warfare and law.
A pretty maid blew weird music through a bone flute, serenading the queen, who moved her fat lips in lisping murmurs of melody, while six squatting maidens waved their long arms and sang. On the wooden walls the shadows of the pandanus and palms waved in the brilliant moonlight that lit the palace glooms.
No king in the South Seas lived in such royal state as Tembinok; he reigned supreme in his terraced seraglio and lived a life of luxury and command, a life that to Western minds would seem one of selfish debauchery and fiery lust, but by the code of South Sea morals was one of extreme virtue and moderation amounting to self-sacrifice.
Milburn gasped with horror as a Samoan attendant told us of Tembinok and his ancestors. With their own hands they had strangled wives and concubines who had given elsewhere that which was destined for the royal favour only. In some of the bed-chambers still lay the bones of the victims who had been sharers in the offence, for they were buried under the floor matting. They were generally chiefs who had met their end, through some slight suspicion, from the club of Tembinok or his ancestors who reigned before him. They would creep by night into the supposed culprit’s sleeping-room and crash his skull in while he slept. Often down those very corridors, where Milburn and I sat listening, crept, in the dead of night, files of harem wives, stealthily moving towards the woman who it was suspected had given herself up to other than the king. With exultation alight in their eyes they would do Tembinok’s bidding, for jealousy of each other was their one pronounced virtue, and seldom was more than one stifled scream heard, as they clutched the sleeping victim on her bed-mat, all their hands struggling in rivalship together to strangle the sleeping concubine who had betrayed their master. As the Samoan from Apia, who was employed at the palace, told us all this, Milburn and I felt a bit uncomfortable about our own presence, and I looked carefully at the revolver which I always carried with me. Then I had several drinks from Milburn’s flask, and that and the thought of the hundred pounds he had promised me stifled my qualms; we went off to our allotted apartments, slept close together and, to our great satisfaction, survived the night.