Tenkoruti left two sons, Tembaitake and Tembinatake.  Tembaitake,
our king's father, was short, middling stout, a poet, a good
genealogist, and something of a fighter; it seems he took himself
seriously, and was perhaps scarce conscious that he was in all
things the creature and nursling of his brother.  There was no
shadow of dispute between the pair:  the greater man filled with
alacrity and content the second place; held the breach in war, and
all the portfolios in the time of peace; and, when his brother
rated him, listened in silence, looking on the ground.  Like
Tenkoruti, he was tall and lean and a swift talker--a rare trait in
the islands.  He possessed every accomplishment.  He knew sorcery,
he was the best genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could
dance and make canoes and armour; and the famous mast of Apemama,
which ran one joint higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship,
was of his conception and design.  But these were avocations, and
the man's trade was war.  'When my uncle go make wa', he laugh,'
said Tembinok'.  He forbade the use of field fortification, that
protractor of native hostilities; his men must fight in the open,
and win or be beaten out of hand; his own activity inspired his
followers; and the swiftness of his blows beat down, in one
lifetime, the resistance of three islands.  He made his brother
sovereign, he left his nephew absolute.  'My uncle make all
smooth,' said Tembinok'.  'I mo' king than my patha:  I got power,'
he said, with formidable relish.

Such is the portrait of the uncle drawn by the nephew.  I can set
beside it another by a different artist, who has often--I may say
always--delighted me with his romantic taste in narrative, but not
always--and I may say not often--persuaded me of his exactitude.  I
have already denied myself the use of so much excellent matter from
the same source, that I begin to think it time to reward good
resolution; and his account of Tembinatake agrees so well with the
king's, that it may very well be (what I hope it is) the record of
a fact, and not (what I suspect) the pleasing exercise of an
imagination more than sailorly.  A., for so I had perhaps better
call him, was walking up the island after dusk, when he came on a
lighted village of some size, was directed to the chief's house,
and asked leave to rest and smoke a pipe.  'You will sit down, and
smoke a pipe, and wash, and eat, and sleep,' replied the chief,
'and to-morrow you will go again.'  Food was brought, prayers were
held (for this was in the brief day of Christianity), and the chief
himself prayed with eloquence and seeming sincerity.  All evening
A. sat and admired the man by the firelight.  He was six feet high,
lean, with the appearance of many years, and an extraordinary air
of breeding and command.  'He looked like a man who would kill you
laughing,' said A., in singular echo of one of the king's
expressions.  And again:  'I had been reading the Musketeer books,
and he reminded me of Aramis.'  Such is the portrait of
Tembinatake, drawn by an expert romancer.

We had heard many tales of 'my patha'; never a word of my uncle
till two days before we left.  As the time approached for our
departure Tembinok' became greatly changed; a softer, a more
melancholy, and, in particular, a more confidential man appeared in
his stead.  To my wife he contrived laboriously to explain that
though he knew he must lose his father in the course of nature, he
had not minded nor realised it till the moment came; and that now
he was to lose us he repeated the experience.  We showed fireworks
one evening on the terrace.  It was a heavy business; the sense of
separation was in all our minds, and the talk languished.  The king
was specially affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and often
sighed.  Of a sudden one of the wives stepped forth from a cluster,
came and kissed him in silence, and silently went again.  It was
just such a caress as we might give to a disconsolate child, and
the king received it with a child's simplicity.  Presently after we
said good-night and withdrew; but Tembinok' detained Mr. Osbourne,
patting the mat by his side and saying:  'Sit down.  I feel bad, I
like talk.'  Osbourne sat down by him.  'You like some beer?' said
he; and one of the wives produced a bottle.  The king did not
partake, but sat sighing and smoking a meerschaum pipe.  'I very
sorry you go,' he said at last.  'Miss Stlevens he good man, woman
he good man, boy he good man; all good man.  Woman he smart all the
same man.  My woman' (glancing towards his wives) 'he good woman,
no very smart.  I think Miss Stlevens he is chiep all the same
cap'n man-o-wa'.  I think Miss Stlevens he rich man all the same
me.  All go schoona.  I very sorry.  My patha he go, my uncle he
go, my cutcheons he go, Miss Stlevens he go:  all go.  You no see
king cry before.  King all the same man:  feel bad, he cry.  I very
sorry.'

In the morning it was the common topic in the village that the king
had wept.  To me he said:  'Last night I no can 'peak:  too much
here,' laying his hand upon his bosom.  'Now you go away all the
same my pamily.  My brothers, my uncle go away.  All the same.'
This was said with a dejection almost passionate.  And it was the
first time I had heard him name his uncle, or indeed employ the
word.  The same day he sent me a present of two corselets, made in
the island fashion of plaited fibre, heavy and strong.  One had
been worn by Tenkoruti, one by Tembaitake; and the gift being
gratefully received, he sent me, on the return of his messengers, a
third--that of Tembinatake.  My curiosity was roused; I begged for
information as to the three wearers; and the king entered with
gusto into the details already given.  Here was a strange thing,
that he should have talked so much of his family, and not once
mentioned that relative of whom he was plainly the most proud.
Nay, more:  he had hitherto boasted of his father; thenceforth he
had little to say of him; and the qualities for which he had
praised him in the past were now attributed where they were due,--
to the uncle.  A confusion might be natural enough among islanders,
who call all the sons of their grandfather by the common name of
father.  But this was not the case with Tembinok'.  Now the ice was
broken the word uncle was perpetually in his mouth; he who had been
so ready to confound was now careful to distinguish; and the father
sank gradually into a self-complacent ordinary man, while the uncle
rose to his true stature as the hero and founder of the race.

The more I heard and the more I considered, the more this mystery
of Tembinok's behaviour puzzled and attracted me.  And the
explanation, when it came, was one to strike the imagination of a
dramatist.  Tembinok' had two brothers.  One, detected in private
trading, was banished, then forgiven, lives to this day in the
island, and is the father of the heir-apparent, Paul.  The other
fell beyond forgiveness.  I have heard it was a love-affair with
one of the king's wives, and the thing is highly possible in that
romantic archipelago.  War was attempted to be levied; but
Tembinok' was too swift for the rebels, and the guilty brother
escaped in a canoe.  He did not go alone.  Tembinatake had a hand
in the rebellion, and the man who had gained a kingdom for a
weakling brother was banished by that brother's son.  The fugitives
came to shore in other islands, but Tembinok' remains to this day
ignorant of their fate.

So far history.  And now a moment for conjecture.  Tembinok'
confused habitually, not only the attributes and merits of his
father and his uncle, but their diverse personal appearance.
Before he had even spoken, or thought to speak, of Tembinatake, he
had told me often of a tall, lean father, skilled in war, and his
own schoolmaster in genealogy and island arts.  How if both were
fathers, one natural, one adoptive?  How if the heir of Tembaitake,
like the heir of Tembinok' himself, were not a son, but an adopted
nephew?  How if the founder of the monarchy, while he worked for
his brother, worked at the same time for the child of his loins?
How if on the death of Tembaitake, the two stronger natures, father
and son, king and kingmaker, clashed, and Tembinok', when he drove
out his uncle, drove out the author of his days?  Here is at least
a tragedy four-square.

The king took us on board in his own gig, dressed for the occasion
in the naval uniform.  He had little to say, he refused
refreshments, shook us briefly by the hand, and went ashore again.
That night the palm-tops of Apemama had dipped behind the sea, and
the schooner sailed solitary under the stars.