He died some months before my arrival on the islands,and no one regretted him;rather all looked hopefully to his successor.This was by repute the hero of the family.Alone of the four brothers,he had issue,a grown son,Natiata,and a daughter three years old;it was to him,in the hour of the revolution,that Nabakatokia turned too late for help;and in earlier days he had been the right hand of the vigorous Nakaeia.Nontemat',MR.CORPSE,was his appalling nickname,and he had earned it well.Again and again,at the command of Nakaeia,he had surrounded houses in the dead of night,cut down the mosquito bars and butchered families.Here was the hand of iron;here was Nakaeia REDUX.He came,summoned from the tributary rule of Little Makin:he was installed,he proved a puppet and a trembler,the unwieldy shuttlecock of orators;and the reader has seen the remains of him in his summer parlour under the name of Tebureimoa.
The change in the man's character was much commented on in the island,and variously explained by opium and Christianity.To my eyes,there seemed no change at all,rather an extreme consistency.
Mr.Corpse was afraid of his brother:King Tebureimoa is afraid of the Old Men.Terror of the first nerved him for deeds of desperation;fear of the second disables him for the least act of government.He played his part of bravo in the past,following the line of least resistance,butchering others in his own defence:
to-day,grown elderly and heavy,a convert,a reader of the Bible,perhaps a penitent,conscious at least of accumulated hatreds,and his memory charged with images of violence and blood,he capitulates to the Old Men,fuddles himself with opium,and sits among his guards in dreadful expectation.The same cowardice that put into his hand the knife of the assassin deprives him of the sceptre of a king.
A tale that I was told,a trifling incident that fell in my observation,depicts him in his two capacities.A chief in Little Makin asked,in an hour of lightness,'Who is Kaeia?'A bird carried the saying;and Nakaeia placed the matter in the hands of a committee of three.Mr.Corpse was chairman;the second commissioner died before my arrival;the third was yet alive and green,and presented so venerable an appearance that we gave him the name of Abou ben Adhem.Mr.Corpse was troubled with a scruple;the man from Little Makin was his adopted brother;in such a case it was not very delicate to appear at all,to strike the blow (which it seems was otherwise expected of him)would be worse than awkward.'I will strike the blow,'said the venerable Abou;and Mr.Corpse (surely with a sigh)accepted the compromise.The quarry was decoyed into the bush;he was set to carrying a log;and while his arms were raised Abou ripped up his belly at a blow.