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It seemed almost like a waste of lives to look up and see not a speck, or the least sign whatever, that was hid under the tree tops, and it was hard to convince oneself that Coe was doing the right thing, and that from those rocky cliffs there was sharp Kanaka eyes taking us all in, with Alethea Tweedie tied hand and foot, and Afiola in a sweat about his children.
It was all Afiola this, and Afiola that; and he got texts, too, from Mrs. Tweedie, and red worsted dogs, and "God Bless Our Home." By the time they had engineered him into shoes and pants, no one daring to laugh for fear he'd shoot them, they promoted him deacon, and put him on the committee for reroofing the church.
Well, for a time it was, Coe slipping out at dawn on the ebb with a cargo of Afiola rapscallions he was to drop, one here, one there, all around the Group, we having no further use for them in Puna Punou. The measles struck us shortly afterwards in a Tahiti bark, and it carried off a sight of people, Afiola included, who was in a sort of armed hiding on the other side of the island.
I suppose Afiola was somewheres around thirty, for he had two children, about eight or nine each, a girl and a boy, who lived with him in his house, together with Talavao, his old mother, Sosofina, his aunt, Oloa, his uncle, his brother Filipo, and a raft of other blood relations whose names I disremember.
We was to leave it to God, he said, and went on like we was worse nor Afiola, the pitiful hound, like it wasn't his own wife we was doing our damnedest to save.
Like all the chiefs of Puna Punou, Afiola was a tall, fine-looking man, very vigorous, lordly, and pleasant spoken, and if it weren't for his pock-marked face and the wickedest eyes I ever saw in a man's head, you would have said he was a perfect gentleman, and handsome, as Kanakas go.
On second thoughts, however, and after hearing how Afiola had been kicking up, he went to the king and tried to stiffen him to take a stand against Afiola, volunteering to do the job himself, if supported, and proposing to exile the fellar to Makatea, and disperse the rest of the gang about the Group gratis in the Peep o' Day.
The whole settlement was buzzing like a hornet's nest, and they were beating a wooden drum in front of the king's house, and everybody was running every which way, telling the news, and how Mrs. Tweedie had been carried off by Afiola, and all screaming out at once, like natives do when excited.
You see, he had named one of his pigs after the king, and there was more scandal over that than for all the crimes he had been guilty of; and there was a razor-backed yaller one for Tweedie, and an old sow for the queen, and porkers for the princes, and he passed insulting remarks on them till the Kanakas went wild those that weren't of Afiola's own family, I mean; and Afiola would laugh and laugh till his great pocked face grew a dirty crimson, laying on a mat with a Winchester beside him, and sniggering as they'd bring him orange beer in a calabash.
In every community there's some fellar who's at the root of all the mischief that happens, so that if anybody gets speared of a dark night, or a girl is missing from home, you know just where to look for who done it. In Puna Punou you looked for Afiola, and the chances were you'd find him drunk on orange beer and laying for trouble with a gun.
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