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By the time they reached headquarters, the warriors were already taking post round Matafele, and the agitation of Mataafa himself was betrayed in the fact that he spoke with the deputation standing and gun in hand: a breach of high-chief dignity perhaps unparalleled.
"But your father, the chief, has a large fine one." "True," said Pola. "But that is not mine. I have the box presented to me by your high-chief goodness. It has a little cover, and there I wish to put the sun-shadow of Tusitala, the beloved chief whom we all revere, but I more than the others because he was the head of my clan." "To be sure," I said, and looked about for a photograph.
Pola wrote me letters by every mail in a large round hand, but they were too conventional to bear any impress of his mind. He referred to our regretted separation, exhorting me to stand fast in the high-chief will of the Lord, and, with his love to each member of the family, mentioned by name and title, he prayed that I might live long, sleep well, and not forget Pola, my unworthy servant.
Another time he came up all laughter and excitement to tell of an adventure. He offered me a ride on his chief-horse and gave me his chief-hand. I put my foot on the stirrup, and just as I jumped the horse shied, and, as I had hold of the high-chief Loia, we both fell off into the road palasi." "Yes," I said, "you both fell off. That was very funny." "Palasi!" he reiterated.
By the time they reached headquarters, the warriors were already taking post round Matafele, and the agitation of Mataafa himself was betrayed in the fact that he spoke with the deputation standing and gun in hand: a breach of high-chief dignity perhaps unparalleled.
He marched the same day with the Vaiala contingent under the high-chief Asi, and that night, shivering on the wet ground, O'olo had his first taste of war. As to it he had many misconceptions, not reckoning on the severity of the rule, or the trifling importance attached to a Tongan, however lionlike his heart.
I have broken the law and I will pay the forfeit." "How did he break the law?" I asked. "When the high-chief Loia, your brother of the four eyes, stopped the night at Tanugamanono, on his way to the shark fishing, he stayed with Tupuola, so of course it was chiefly to kill a pig in his honor." "But it was against the law.
To all my inquiries he answered in purest high-chief Samoan that he was my son. My brother came to the rescue with explanations. I shook hands with him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully with great dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with the remark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chief notice.
To which the fallen warrior made answer: "I am Tangaloa, the high-chief of Leatatafili, in Savai'i, and the property I speak of is no myth, and all of it thine if thou wilt spare me."
But generally he was extremely patient with me, trying a sentence in half a dozen different ways, with his bright eyes fixed eagerly on my face, and when the sense of what he said dawned upon me and I repeated it to prove that I understood, his own countenance would light up with an expression of absolute pride and triumph. "Good!" he would say, approvingly. "Great is your high-chief wisdom!"
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