night time they watched along the beaches for the hawk-bill turtle; the
oil they put into huge butts, which stood in the king's boat-sheds, and
the costly turtle-shell was taken by the young ruler and locked up in
the seamen's chests which lined the inside wall of the great
council-house. And no man durst now fire a musket at a wild pig, for
powder and ball had been made _tapu_--such things were given up to the
chiefs, lest they might be wasted, and every morning three young men
climbed up the rugged side of Mont Buache, to keep a look-out for the
ship whose captain would help their master to wreak a bloody vengeance
upon the rebellious people of Leassé.

At the end of the sixteenth month of watching, a sail appeared coming
from the southward, and the watchers on the mountain-top sped down to
the king's house, and sinking upon their knees in the courtyard of coral
slabs, whispered their news to one of the king's serving-men, who, with
a musket in his hand and a cutlass girt around his naked waist, stood
sentry before the youthful despot's sleeping-room.

"Good," said the king to Kanka, his head chief; "'tis surely the
American Késa,[13] for this is the month in which he said he would
return. Let the women make ready a great feast, and launch my three
boats, so that if the wind fail, when the sun is high, they may help to
drag the ship into Lele."

Then came the sound of beating drums, and the long, mournful note of the
conch-shells calling the wild people together to prepare for the ship.
Turtle were lifted from their walled-in prison holes on the reef, hogs
were strangled, and the king's wives went hither and thither among his
slave women, bidding them hasten to kindle the ovens, whilst children
went out into the great canework cage, wherein were hundreds of the