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Updated: May 6, 2025
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.
But these requests had, of late years, been so much modified, that the island, under the rule of Mahua, had become renowned for its wealth of food and the prosperous condition of its inhabitants.
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.
'Why is it that none of ye speak either to me, or to one another? Am I a corpse that is dressed for the funeral rites? Then one of them, named Tanéo, his foster-brother, answered, and bent his head as he spoke, 'Oh, Narü, son of Mahua, and mine own brother, hast thou not heard of the dream of Milli?
"What name, you?" he demanded. "Sangui?" "Me Mahua," was the answer. "All right, you fella Mahua. You finish cook along boys. You stop along white Mary. All the time you stop along. You savvee?" "Me savvee," she grunted, and obeyed his gesture to go to the grass house immediately. "What name?" he asked Viaburi, who had just come out of the grass house. "Big fella sick," was the answer.
On the afternoon of the tenth day, some men whom Mahua had set to watch for Tetoro's fleet saw the great mat sails of five war canoes sweeping across the long line of palms that fringed the southern beach? * The conch shell. Now, it so happened that Narü, when the cry arose that the canoes were coming, was sitting alone in a little bush-house near the south point of the island.
Then, kneeling on the sand she said, 'Draw near to me and listen. Quickly the opposing parties formed a circle around her; before her stood the haughty and angry Laea; behind her, and standing side by side, Tanéo and the grey-haired Tahitian warrior. 'I am Milli, the bond-woman of Mahua, the father of Narü.
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.
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