This king was asked his opinion of Ota. He gave it very brusquely indeed, and in two or three words.
"He is an old woman, only fit to pound bread-fruit."
On the beach a day or two after this Toddie and her guard were assembled to see a review of the cannibal warriors, and a very fearful sight she thought it. The review was followed by a warrior dance, with wild, unearthly music from tom-toms and conch-shells, and then there was a great bonfire at night, with another dance around this.
Toddie dreamt about what she had seen all night long.
However, complete amity was secured with these people, and so much were they trusted that when the ship sailed away on a visit to the Isle of Good Hope, Quambo, the missionary, Bunko, and a party of whites were left with the king to show him how to build better huts or houses.
Toddie's delight on arriving at the Isle of Good Hope knew no bounds.
When she stood on the beach and gazed around her at the bay with its peaceful waters, the waves breaking with low and mournful boom on the reef outside, the feathery cocoanut palms stirred by the breeze, the flowery pandanus groves, the little cottage, with its rustic porch and its walks of silvery sand, across which the wild flowers were now trailing, she smiled and sighed, and tears filled her eyes.
"Oh, how romantic!" she said, "and yet how mournful!" "Still," she added, "I think I should have liked the life."
"Had you been here," said Frank gallantly, "had you been here, Toddie, perhaps we should not have been in such a hurry to leave."
They spent the whole day in wandering through the forest, and on their return they found dinner ready in the little cottage, cooked by little Cassia-bud, just as it used to be when Fred and Frank were Crusoes.