Grief turned back on him in the half-belief still that he was joking. Fulualea again retreated in alarm. The form of a large man loomed beside him in the darkness.
“Is it you, Uiliami?” Fulualea crooned. “Here is another sea pirate. Stand by me with the strength of thy arm, O Herculean brother.”
“Greeting, Uiliami,” Grief said. “Since when has Fitu-Iva come to be run by a Levuka beachcomber? He says my schooner has been seized. Is it true?”
“It is true,” Uiliami boomed from his deep chest. “Have you any more silk shirts like Willie Smee's? Tui Tulifau would like such a shirt. He has heard of it.”
“'Tis all the same,” Fulualea interrupted. “Shirts or schooners, the king shall have them.”
“Rather high-handed, Cornelius,” Grief murmured. “It's rank piracy. You seized my vessel without giving me a chance.”
“A chance is it? As we stood here, not five minutes gone, didn't you refuse to pay your fines?”
“But she was already seized.”
“Sure, an' why not? Didn't I know you'd refuse? 'Tis all fair, an' no injustice done—Justice, the bright, particular star at whose shining altar Cornelius Deasy—or Fulualea, 'tis the same thing—ever worships. Get thee gone, Mr. Trader, or I'll set the palace guards on you. Uiliami, 'tis a desperate character, this trader man. Call the guards.”
Uiliami blew the whistle suspended on his broad bare chest by a cord of cocoanut sennit. Grief reached out an angry hand for Cornelius, who titubated into safety behind Uiliami's massive bulk. A dozen strapping Polynesians, not one under six feet, ran down the palace walk and ranged behind their commander.