Both Kitty and Lālia urged me not to do this, for, they said, "as soon as the Captain goes away there will be fighting here; the king is weak, and the traders do not fear him. Besides, they are plotting with Likiak Sâ, the missionary, who has promised them to win the king over. They say that you and Black Johnny are the only two men that will stand by the Captain's property when guns and knives are out, as young Harry is to stay at Utwé till the Captain returns."
I inquired of the girls what the traders proposed doing with me?
"Shoot you, Black Johnny, and young Harry. Then, when the Captain is once away, they will be strong enough, and the king will not interfere with them."
Lālia then told me that one of the trader's wives had told her that they had arranged to have us three shot by some of their natives as soon as the Captain had left for Millé. The girls again urged me not to comply with the king's request, and to dissuade Hayston from his intended voyage. Indeed, they tried to prevent me from going to the king at all, Kitty urging me to come to her house, and write a letter to the Captain asking him to meet me there.
The thought of the Captain being a victim, as well as myself and young Harry, to such treachery decided me in an instant, and breaking away from the women, Kusis and I soon reached the king's house.
The traders who were living at Chabral kept carefully within doors. When I reached the courtyard of the king's house I found no one there but His Majesty and Likiak Sâ engaged in earnest conversation. The native missionary glanced uneasily at me, and I at once opened out on him by calling him a treacherous dog, striking him at the same time, and threatening him with the Captain's vengeance. He picked himself up and left.
"Where is the Captain?" I said to the king.
"In my oil-shed," he answered in a troubled voice.
But I said nothing to him, and, finding Hayston, shortly made him acquainted with what I had learnt from Kitty of Ebon. His face darkened as he strode off to the king.
At that moment the natives called out that there was a vessel in sight, upon which he turned back, and together we walked to the beach in time to see a fine fore and aft schooner sailing in, which Hayston declared was the Matautu, belonging to Captain Warner.