United States or Cyprus ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Day after day he sent his servants to every village on the island demanding from them all such things as would please the eye of Tetoro; so that by-and-by there was but little left in their plantations, and still less in their houses.
Only once had he seen her; but since then he had sent over many canoes laden with presents, such as hogs and turtle, and great bunches of plantains, and fine tappa cloth for her acceptance. But Tetoro, her father, was a greedy man, and cried for more; and Mahua, so that his son might gain his heart's desire, became hard and cruel to the people of Tetuaroa.
Then Laea, as she looked at the amazed and angered faces of her people as they heard Tanéo's insulting words, dashed aside her attendants, and leaping from the canoe into the shallow water, walked to the shore, and stood face to face with him. 'Who art thou, fellow, to stand before the daughter of Tetoro the King, with a spear in thy rude hand, and thy mouth filled with saucy words?
Tetoro, one of the chiefs who returned from Port Jackson in the "Dromedary," was sometimes admitted, during the passage, into the cabin, and asked by the officers to take a glass of wine, when he always tasted it, with perfect politeness, though his countenance strongly indicated how much he disliked it.
Cruise tells us that Tetoro, on the voyage from Port Jackson, cut the hair of one of his companions, and continued to repeat prayers over him during the whole operation.
'Thy words are brave, Tanéo; but only because that behind them lieth no danger. Only a coward could talk as He sprang back. 'Ho, men of Paré! Listen! So that but one or two men may die, and many live, let this quarrel lie between me and any one of ye that will battle with me here, spear to spear, on this beach. Is it not better so than that Tetoro the King should weep for so many of his people?
When Tetoro was shown, in the "Dromedary," a double-barrelled fowling-piece, belonging to one of the officers, he "tabooed" it by tying a thread, pulled out of his cloak, round the guard of the trigger, and said that it must be his when he got to New Zealand, and that the owner should have thirty of his finest mats for it.
It was, therefore, with no pleasant feelings that the people viewed the approaching marriage of the son of their chief to the child of the grasping Tetoro, a man who would certainly see no abatement made in the extortions he had succeeded in inducing his vassal Mahua to again inaugurate.
And so, with sullen faces and low murmurs of anger, the people yielded up their treasures of mats and tappa cloth, and such other things that the servants of the chief discovered in their dwellings, and watched them carried away to appease the avarice of Tetoro the King. 'Why has this misfortune come upon us? they said to one another.
But, so that neither Mahua nor his son should suspect their intentions, they set about to prepare for the great feast ordered by Tetoro; and for the next week or so the whole population was busily engaged in bringing together their various presents of food and goods, and conveying them to the chief's house, where, on the arrival of the fleet of canoes that would bring the king's daughter from Paré, they would be presented to her in person by the priests and minor chiefs.
Word Of The Day