Queen Sê was a tiny little creature—very good-looking, even at this time of her life—being about five-and-twenty, which is considered the passée period in Polynesia. She was extremely vain, but had a quick perception of humour. She and the Captain always got on famously together.
Drawing our chairs up to a side table, she brought me a number of bound volumes of Leslie's Illustrated Paper, sent to her by the queen of Hawaii.
While I looked at the pictures she plied me with questions, principally at random, about Captain Hayston, who, I was not long in discovering, had been a former admirer. Going into a side room, she unlocked a small box, and brought me out a photo of a gentleman wearing a post-captain's uniform in her Britannic Majesty's navy. "What do you think of him?" she asked. "Very, oh! very handsome man—that Captain Damer. Oh! that long time ago. I love him; he love me too"—and then, pointing to poor old Tokusar, "King know all about it. He don't like me to talk about Captain Damer. But, oh! such handsome man! He tell me I loveliest girl in all the world. What you think yourself? What Captain tell you; he think me pretty too?"
Her Majesty was an expert angler for flattery. I was not indisposed to humour a pretty woman, and a queen, and was evidently rising in her estimation. I resolved to turn my good fortune to account, by inducing her to effect a reconciliation between the king and the Captain, who wanted the king to visit him at Utwé, to see the wonderful change he had effected there. He felt certain that, when the king saw the magnitude of the station, knowing that it must, sooner or later, come into his possession when he, Hayston, left the island, he would forgive all that had passed.
Once the subject was broached I became an ardent advocate for the Captain, and told the queen how anxious he was to be on good terms with the king again. In fact, so eloquent did I become, partly through the potency of the schnapps of which I had partaken, that I represented the Captain as devoured with grief at losing the king's and her friendship.
The queen listened gravely, and then extending her shapely hand, caught me by the ear, and laughed, "Oh! you bad boy! Captain Hayston think Tokusar old fool; told me so plenty time. Well, never mind, I try make everything all right."
The queen, as beseemed her, had a number of young women with her, sitting round the sides of the great room. Some were making the girdles that the Kusaie natives of both sexes wear round the waist under their other garments. They are woven on an ingeniously constructed loom, the banana fibres which form the material being stained in various bright colours. These girls were sitting in the manner peculiar to the Strong's Island women, with their eyes cast down—it being considered a boldness to look at either the king or queen. When speaking to either their eyes were always bent on the ground.
The king, being carefully placed on a cane lounge, a meal was brought in. Both Kusis and I were presented with food enough to last for a month. As the queen bade me good-night she passed her arm round me, and tenderly inquired, "How my poor side feel?" adding that I was a very good boy, because I was kind to Strong's Island man. She also informed me that I could kiss her, which I did. Then putting the post-captain's photo in her bosom she went to bed, finally telling me that she "will make king friend once more with Captain."
For the next six months I lived with the kind-hearted Kusis, his wife, and little daughter. Except for an occasional visit to the Captain or the king, nothing disturbed the pleasing monotony of my existence.