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I don't mean to go into the speech-making part of the performance, for what between Seumanutafa and Papalangi Mativa, and the talking-man Sasa had lent me for the occasion, and a divinity student who happened along, and somebody who said he was Fale Upolu and spoke for the entire Group, and an aged faipule from the Union Islands who seemed to have some kind of a grievance about his father's head, and the Chief Justice who had to butt in with the capitation tax we were kept there a matter of three hours or more, until at last the principals officially made it up, To'oto'o was forgiven, and everything ended happily.
To'oto'o's face grew several shades darker at the suggestion, and though I promised him twenty dollars out of hand for himself and two kegs of beef and three tins of biscuit by way of peace offering to Papalangi Mativa, he hemmed and hawed and finally said no. Then Sasa bore a hand and spoke beautifully of Rosalie, and how this unfortunate business of O's head had divided her from Silver Tongue.
I said, which in Kanaka is being sympathetic. "Dat is not all," said Silver Tongue. "Listen, gabtain!" "I'm listening," I said. "The warrior that killed O was To'oto'o, the matai," continued Papalangi Mativa with the air of one announcing the end of the world. "To'oto'o!" I said in all innocence.
I found him, as usual, on the mats of the native house, glumly smoking a pipe and talking politics with Papalangi Mativa. His lean, dark, handsome face was overcast, his eyes uneasy, and had I not known him for a brave man I should have thought that he was frightened. He was certainly very curt and short in greeting me, and I had a dim perception that my visit was unwelcome.
I suppose Silver Tongue thought our man was hurt, or something, for he came running after us with a bottle of square-face and a packet of first aid to the wounded, elbowing his way excitedly through the crowd to where we had deposited To'oto'o at the feet of Papalangi Mativa.
"I have it straight from Papalangi Mativa himself." "Have what?" I asked. "Excellency," said Papalangi Mativa, "perhaps it is not high-chief-known to thee that I and mine come from a noble Savai'i stock, and that the son of my mother's sister, a stripling named O, numbered himself among the enemy and was to-day killed and his head taken on the field of Vaitele." "Aue!"
Indeed, if Silver Tongue had a fault it was a certain moroseness and fierceness of temper, a readiness and even an apparent pleasure in taking offense, that made him somewhat of a solitary in our midst and threw him more than ever on the companionship of his own Kanakas; so that at night, when one had occasion to seek him out, he was usually to be found on the mats of his native house, smoking his pipe or playing sweepy with his bulky father-in-law, Papalangi Mativa.
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