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"Is it not so written on this paper as well?" Again Grief whispered. "That Fitu-Iva will pay coin money?" asked Ieremia "It is so written." A third time Grief prompted. "On demand?" asked Ieremia. "On demand," Cornelius assured him. "Then I demand coin money now," said Ieremia, drawing a small package of notes from the pouch at his girdle.
Deacon turned toward the door, where Captain Donovan waited, and added with a sigh, "And I fancy he'll skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you island men." It was the island of Fitu-Iva the last independent Polynesian stronghold in the South Seas. Three factors conduced to Fitu-Iva's independence. The first and second were its isolation and the warlikeness of its population.
And that was why the traders opposed it. They did not want to see Fitu-Iva civilized. Why did they come across the far ocean stretches with their goods to Fitu-Iva? He, the Feathers of the Sun, would tell them why, to their faces, in grand council assembled. In their own countries men were too civilized to let the traders make the immense profits that they made out of the Fitu-Ivans.
Grief, it sorrows the heart of me to break you the news. You'll have to pay your legitimate import duties same as any other trader with mind intent on robbin' the gentle Polynesian savage on coral isles implanted. Where was I? Ah! I remember. You've violated the regulations. With malice intent have you entered the port of Fitu-Iva after sunset without sidelights burnin'. Don't interrupt.
"It's Fijian, isn't it? meaning the feathers of the sun?" "Just so. It means the feathers of the sun. Thus does this base interloper caption himself. He has come up from Fiji to turn Fitu-Iva upside down that is, commercially." "Some one of those smart Levuka boys, I suppose?" Ieremia shook his head sadly. "No, this low fellow is a white man and a scoundrel.
The robbing white traders could not flourish in the light. Therefore they fought the light. He would prove it to the good people of Fitu-Iva, and he would prove it out of the mouths of his enemies. It was a well-known fact that all highly civilized countries had paper-money systems. He would ask Ieremia if this was not so. Ieremia did not answer. "You see," Cornelius went on, "he makes no answer.
Ieremia was right so far as concerned the manifold blessings of white flour and kerosene oil. Fitu-Iva did not want to become kai-kanak. Fitu-Iva wanted civilization; it wanted more and more civilization. Now that was the very point, and they must follow him closely. Paper money was an earmark of higher civilization. That was why he, the Feathers of the Sun, had introduced it.
And in three days will be the council, and Feathers of the Sun will be as dead as a dead pig." The day of the council found the population of the island crowded into the capital. By canoe and whaleboat, on foot and donkey-back, the five thousand inhabitants of Fitu-Iva had trooped in. The three intervening days had had their share of excitement.
When the gin and the goods in your house are gone, and no more traders come with gin and goods, and Feathers of the Sun has run away to Levuka with all the cash money of Fitu-Iva, what then will you do? Cash money is silver and gold, but paper is only paper. I tell you the people are grumbling. There is no fish in the palace.
Ieremia could not deny, and his fingers played nervously with the fastening of the basket on his knees. "You see, it is as I have said," Cornelius continued. "Ieremia agrees that it is so. Therefore, I ask you, all good people of Fitu-Iva, if a system is good for the Papalangi countries, why is it not good for Fitu-Iva?" "It is not the same!" Ieremia cried.
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