United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In the quiet little harbour of Mulifanua, situated at the western end of the island of Upolu, a fine-looking brigantine was lying at anchor, and the captain and supercargo were pacing the deck together enjoying their after-breakfast pipes. The brigantine was the Maori Maid of Auckland, Captain Heselton, and the supercargo was young Robert Flemming.
Else he may die in the boat and we lose the price of his passage; for the white men at Mulifanua will not pay us for bringing to them a dead man. So they cast off the lashings of fau bark that bound Rídan to the thwart, and Pulu, lifting him up, gave him a long drink, holding the gourd to his quivering mouth for his hands were tied behind him.
Yet all this gave him no concern. "What does it matter to me?" he said to his brother Patiole one day, when Patiole, who was a chief of Manono, reproached him for his meanness in sending away some visitors from Tutuila with such scanty presents that all the people of Mulifanua were ashamed. "What does it matter to me what people say of me?
"Well, the four poor trembling beggars were liberated, and carrying the six heads of their comrades, they went back, and their story so terrified the people of Mulifanua that no further attempt was ever made to capture the outlaws.
The vessel had run into Mulifanua Harbour owing to her having struck on a reef a few days previously whilst beating up against the south-east trades from Wallis Island to Leone Bay, a port on the island of Tutuila, one of the Samoan Group, and as she was leaking rather seriously her captain decided to run into Mulifanua, put her on the beach, and get at the leak or leaks.
"Ho, ho!" and Manka's voice again mocked, "did I not say 'twas a dog that bit?" There was great commotion in the taumualua for a moment or two, but Tamavili shouted to his men to go on; he would have ordered some of them to cease paddling and try and shoot Manaia, but feared to hurt or perhaps kill me, and that would have meant war between Tufa and Mulifanua.
Telling their prisoners to sit down, half of their number went away, returning in half an hour with the six heads of the men who had been shot. "Take these heads back with you," said one of the outlaws, who could speak Samoan, "and tell all Mulifanua that we are strong men. We fear no one, for we have plenty of guns and cartridges, and five hundred men such as you cannot take us.
They all looked curiously at him and addressed him in many island tongues, and Rídan smiled and shook his head and said, 'Me Rídan; me Onêata. 'Leave him with me, Kühne, said Burton to the captain of the brig. 'He's the best and biggest man of the lot you've brought this trip. I'll marry him to one of my wife's servants, and he'll live in clover down at Mulifanua.
'Send him back to the plantation, said the manager, who was a mere German civilian, and consequently much despised by his foreman, who had served in Africa. 'I'm afraid to keep him here, and I'm not going to punish him if he tries to get away again, poor devil. So back he went to Mulifanua.
Then the manager dismissed the men, and Flemming, thanking him for his kindness, hurried on board and told his story to Captain Heselton. Two days afterwards the Maori Maid was sailing slowly out through Mulifanua passage. Flemming, with the skipper beside him, was standing on the poop, looking for'ard.
Word Of The Day