Furthermore, Vaiti, neglecting the half-castes and the whites, began with considerable art to make herself popular among the natives. She dressed herself Liali fashion, and arranged her hair after the island modes. She joined in all their interminable boating journeys and picnics, and was never tired of sitting cross-legged on the ground, waving her arms and head in time with a hundred others, and chanting Lialian songs that lasted an afternoon apiece. After dark, she was often to be seen out on the reef, with a torch and a fishing spear making an exhibition of piscatorial skill that astonished even the Lialians themselves. When there was an unmissionary dance in some big chief-house, Vaiti was always there, decked with wreaths and flower necklaces, and polished with cocoanut oil, turning the heads of all the young men by the grace of her dancing, and winning the astonished approval of the women by the cool reserve with which she received every advance of a sentimental nature. Both Mahina and Litia took jealous fancies to her—thus acquiring yet one more cause of mutual dissension—and separately poured all their woes into her ear. She was wonderfully sympathetic, and urged each one on to assert her rights and stand no nonsense; insomuch that before very long the island was fairly ringing with what Litia's people meant to do to Mahina's, and what Mahina's would certainly do to Litia's, in the event of the King selecting one or the other.
Somebody about this time—it was never ascertained who—spread a report that Captain Saxon of the Sybil had a number of trade rifles on board his ship, and several cases of cartridges. The talk began to take a more dangerous turn. The schooner would not be back till the wedding was over, it was said, but let the winning party look out for themselves when she did come! The Lialians, under missionary rule, had been peaceful and law-abiding people for almost a whole generation; but they had not yet forgotten that they were once the masters of the Pacific, and that of all the warlike island races, none had been such fighters as they.... The older men began to snuff battle in the air, walked about with their chests flung out, and told bloodthirsty ancient stories to the younger Lialians. The women sang war songs at the evening gatherings in the chief-houses, and Mahina and Litia began to go about followed by bands of eager partisans. Liali was certainly warming up.
CHAPTER XX
QUEEN AFTER ALL
News of all these things came duly to the King through his faithful spies, and his Majesty Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. went nearly frantic. He actually began to lose weight—a consummation that all the skill of his European court doctor had hitherto failed to bring about—and day by day he drove more wildly behind his famous blacks, covering mile after mile of lonely forest roads at a pace that brought the horses home all in a lather and the yellow satin cushions grimed with dust. The wedding approached within ten days: the triumphal arches were being erected; the Queen Consort's throne came back from the carpenter, freshly gilded and upholstered; and the band were hard at work practising the strange conglomeration of shrieks and wails that make up the Lialian National Anthem. The bride's dress, provided, according to usage, by the House of Lords, arrived at the palace in a palm-leaf basket. It was a very gorgeous affair—a long, loose robe of orange satin, embroidered in scarlet by a few of the cleverest mission-school girls—and it was of a usefully indefinite size, since the difference between the massive Mahina and the waspish little Litia was almost as great as the difference (of another kind) between their respective parties. The silver-printed invitations for the white people and the chiefs—"To be present at the wedding of His Majesty King Napoleon Timothy Te Paea III. with Princess——," came up by a whale-ship from Auckland, and so did the wedding cake, largely plaster of Paris. And still the wretched King, lashed by the scourge of his own light-hearted follies, sent pacificating presents to both girls, and put off the dire decision.
It was about this time that any wayfarer passing through the casuarina forest "might have observed" a light in Vaiti's cottage late one night. There was no one to observe, however, for the wood was supposed to be devil-haunted, and no native ever passed through it save in broad daylight. When it grew toward sunset the only Lialian who would brave its dangers so far as to rush across it in the red evening light was the King himself, who had been educated in Sydney, and did not believe in devils—much. The forest road was the shortest way home from his usual circular drive, and he frequently passed by the cottage just before sunset, driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi, and looking neither to right nor to left. He had never noticed Vaiti as he passed, for she was always within the house, looking out between the cracks of the palm-leaves, where she could see without being seen.
This evening, long after the King had passed by and the dark had come down, Vaiti sat on the floor of the hut, looking very thoughtful, as she turned out the contents of her big camphorwood box by the light of a ship's hurricane lantern. She was all alone, as usual, and smoking, also as usual. There was no sound in the solitary little house but the sighing of the wind in the casuarina trees and the steady puff of the girl's cigar. Papers, letters, packets of lace, odd bits of jewellery, silk dresses, pistols, knives, collections of rope and twine, laced underclothing, cartridges, feathers, shells, cigars, pearl-inlaid boxes, revareva plumes, and a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends garnered from all the four corners of the South Seas, strewed the floor, and the box was still half full. By-and-by she came upon what she wanted—a roll of stuff done up in waxed paper. She unfastened it, and let the contents fall out across the mats under the rays of the lantern. It was a web of pure gold tissue, bright as a summer sunrise and fine as a fairy's wing—an exquisite piece of stuff, which she had acquired from a Chinese trader in Honolulu by means none too scrupulous, and hoarded away for years.
Vaiti looked at it thoughtfully, and then opened a little tortoise-shell and silver box, and spilled its contents—a shower of photographs—into her lap. They were an exceedingly various collection—naval, military, British, French, native and half-caste—but most were men, and many were young and handsome. Perhaps the best-looking of the collection was that of a young English naval officer, signed across the corner "R. Tempest," with a Sydney address, and "Must it be good-bye?" written in tiny letters under the signature. Vaiti took the picture in her hand, and looked at it so long and earnestly that her cigar went out while she gazed. She lit another, put down the photograph, and sat smoking and thinking for quite a long time.... The world was still all before her ... and the whaling ship had said that another vessel was almost sure to touch, on her way to Sydney next week.
Once in Vaiti's many-coloured history a looking-glass had proved her undoing. It was a looking-glass that proved her salvation now, at the parting of the ways. For, as she sat thinking, a brilliant picture caught her eye—her own proud, lovely head, crowned regally with a wreath of flowers, reflected in the mirror inside the lid of the box. She smiled, stretched out her hand—letting the photograph fall unnoticed to the floor from her lap—and placed a fold of the golden tissue across her head.... Yes, it looked quite like a crown—a Queen Consort's crown ... the glass gave back a truly royal picture.
Vaiti's cheeks flushed as she looked. She could hardly turn away. But the golden fold slipped off her hair, and the queenly picture was gone.