Raising herself on one elbow, Mrs. Deasy pointed contemptuously to Manogi's husband and called out—
“Ah, you conceited Manogi! Take home thy German pala-ai (coward). My man hath beaten him badly.”
“Thou liest, thou great blubbering whale,” was the beauty's scornful reply; “he could beat such a drunkard as thy husband any day.”
The two women sprang to their feet, and were about to engage again when Denison ran in between them, and succeeded in keeping them apart. Deasy and Hans looked on unconcernedly.
“What is all this?” said Denison to Packenham.
Packenham groaned, “I don't know. An old woman hit me with a club.”
“Serve you right. Now then, Deasy, and you, Hans, send all these women away. I thought you had more sense than to encourage such things,” and then Denison, who excelled in vituperative Samoan, addressed the assemblage, and told the people to go home.
Still glaring defiance, the two factions slowly turned to leave the field, and again all would have been well but for Manogi, who was burning to see the thing out to its bitter end. So she had her try.
Pati-lima came from Manono, the people of which island eat much shell-fish, and suffer much in consequence from the sarcastic allusions of the rest of the Samoan people. And they don't like it, any more than a Scotsman likes his sacred haggis being made the subject of idiotic derision. So as the two parties moved off, Manogi faced round to Pati-lima.
“Pah! Manono ai foli” (Manono feeds on shellfish).