So they returned and built houses upon their own earth and upon the foundations of their ancestors, only they did not repair their war-fences. And they planted yams, and dug them, and planted them again, and still there was peace; but Bonawai pondered deeply in those days how the payment might be accomplished.
Now they took their first-fruits to Rara in token of submission, and Bonawai presented them and said, “We are poor. All our chiefs are gone, and only we, the low-born, remain to bring this poor offering to you, our elder brothers. Payment has been made as is right; for between brothers ill-will is buried when payment has been made, and alliances are renewed for war against the stranger. But my words are too long already—Mana-e-dina!”
And the men of Rara answered, “Va-arewa-ia-ē,” and clapped their hands.
And that night Vasualevu of Rara, whose mother was a Valekau woman, spoke to his vasu, and asked whether Bonawai’s words were double. And they said, “Yes. We had a quarrel with you about a certain stick with which fish are taken—a magic contrivance of the foreigners—and we burned your fortress, and you in turn burned ours. Thus there was payment as is fitting between brothers. But with these low-born of Tovutovu we had no quarrel, neither had ye, yet they burned both your town and ours, and baked the bodies of your relations, and even now they feed the pigs they took from Rara and Valekau. All this they did though they are not our brothers, but strangers. Shall not payment be taken for all these things?”
And Vasualevu told the elders of Rara that night as they lay in the great bure, and Dongai said, “Are the words true or false? Surely they are true! What root of quarrel had we with this Tovutovu that they clubbed our women and burned our fortress? But for them we should not have been fugitives, oppressed of Korokula, for Valekau dared not to fight us alone. Even now, perhaps, they laugh at us in Tovutovu, and grow fat upon our pigs. Shall not payment be taken for all these things?”
And the elders said, “It is true. Let us send to Bonawai, the crafty, to devise a plan.”
So they sent a messenger to Valekau, and he said, “Go, tell the chiefs of Rara that I have seen their great bure. It is ruinous, for the king-post is rotten. Let Tovutovu cut them a new post.” Now this was true, for when the bure was burned the king-post was not consumed, and they rebuilt the house, using the old post.
So the chiefs of Rara sent to Tovutovu, saying, “Help us to rebuild our great bure, for the post is rotten. We have seen a vesi-tree seven fathoms long, and of great girth, which two men with outstretched arms cannot encompass. Let this be your work, for you are more numerous than we.”
And they said, “It is well.”
And every day the young men cut reeds and bamboos for the house in the plain across the river by Tovutovu, and cried to the people weeding their yams, “Our task is near finished; only the king-post is wanting.”