“It looks as if that count was getting cold feet,” the boatswain’s mate replied. “If he’d had more nerve the Herzovinian flag would have been flying on the flagstaff at Kulinuu right now.”
Phil shook his head. “It’s a pretty big undertaking to annex a kingdom unless you are sure you’re going to be backed up,” he said.
“It didn’t take our admiral long to make up his mind,” O’Neil reminded. “And he doesn’t know he’s going to be backed up, either.”
“That’s different,” Phil replied. “He is only restoring a king to a throne under a law that he considers yet binding. And he has sufficient force to do it.”
Chief Tuamana had shown evident and outward signs of great joy when Phil told him that the American admiral was going to uphold the chief justice’s decision, and passing a big Kapuan canoe filled with natives, the delighted chief raised his voice to taunt his enemies, some of whom he recognized, when Phil by main force drew him down and told him forcefully to keep his counsel to himself.
“They’re just like schoolboys with a secret, sir,” O’Neil said. “Those natives are on their way home, aren’t they?” he asked of Tuamana. The launch was not over three miles from the harbor. The “Talofa’s” sail was barely in sight on the horizon.
The chief shook his head.
“Going to Vaileli for a dance,” he answered in very broken English. “Chief Tuatele is there in that boat; he ask me to go along. He make fun of me.” The chief grunted in contempt.
“Do you mean there’s going to be a big Siva-Siva there to-night?” Phil asked eagerly.
Tuamana replied in the affirmative. “This day big day at Vaileli plantation. Very big ‘Siva-Siva’ and ‘Talola.’”[38]