He was even rated,plied with historic instances,threatened with the men-of-war,ordered to restore the tapu on the spot -and nothing in the least affected him.It should be done to-morrow,he said;to-day it was beyond his power,to-day he durst not.'Is that royal?'cried indignant Mr.Rick.No,it was not royal;had the king been of a royal character we should ourselves have held a different language;and royal or not,he had the best of the dispute.The terms indeed were hardly equal;for the king was the only man who could restore the tapu,but the Ricks were not the only people who sold drink.He had but to hold his ground on the first question,and they were sure to weaken on the second.Alittle struggle they still made for the fashion's sake;and then one exceedingly tipsy deputation departed,greatly rejoicing,a case of brandy wheeling beside them in a barrow.The Rarotongan (whom I had never seen before)wrung me by the hand like a man bound on a far voyage.'My dear frien'!'he cried,'good-bye,my dear frien'!'-tears of kummel standing in his eyes;the king lurched as he went,the courtier ambled,-a strange party of intoxicated children to be entrusted with that barrowful of madness.
You could never say the town was quiet;all morning there was a ferment in the air,an aimless movement and congregation of natives in the street.But it was not before half-past one that a sudden hubbub of voices called us from the house,to find the whole white colony already gathered on the spot as by concerted signal.The SANS SOUCI was overrun with rabble,the stair and verandah thronged.From all these throats an inarticulate babbling cry went up incessantly;it sounded like the bleating of young lambs,but angrier.In the road his royal highness (whom I had seen so lately in the part of butler)stood crying upon Tom;on the top step,tossed in the hurly-burly,Tom was shouting to the prince.Yet a while the pack swayed about the bar,vociferous.Then came a brutal impulse;the mob reeled,and returned,and was rejected;the stair showed a stream of heads;and there shot into view,through the disbanding ranks,three men violently dragging in their midst a fourth.By his hair and his hands,his head forced as low as his knees,his face concealed,he was wrenched from the verandah and whisked along the road into the village,howling as he disappeared.