“Don’t wake me until the schooner anchors,” he said to the woman who was then clearing away the remnants of his meal. “My bed ready? I’m dead sleepy.” After Klinger had gone to his room the woman took her master’s clothes and proceeded to the little stream a few hundred yards up the beach. There she began to wash the soiled garments. As the day dawned the settlement commenced to awaken from its slumber. Fishermen launched their canoes, paddling out to the reef to seek for shell-fish. Native woman after woman appeared, squatting down in the shallow brook to cleanse her own and her husband’s slender wardrobe. A babble of musical voices rose above the noise of the brook and the distant thunder of the surf on the reef. “Missi Klinger come?” asked one woman as she noticed in the early morning light the clothes being washed by Klinger’s wife. Fanua nodded joyfully. She was very proud of being the wife of the manager of the Kapuan firm. She was a comely woman, much younger than Klinger, but the first bloom of youth had vanished. There yet remained a certain charm of movement. Every gesture was full of grace, the effect of her long training as the Tapau[27] of Saluafata, where, until Klinger married her, she had led the village in all its dances and processions. The throng of women continued to increase. All plied questions to the smiling Fanua, who answered them all good-naturedly. When would Kataafa arrive? What was going to happen? Had the chief justice said who was to be king? Could they go ahead and build their new house? Was there to be war? Would the islands be taken by Herzovinia? The women of Kapua are the source of all gossip. Nothing can be kept secret from their intelligent intellects. Nor can any of them keep a secret an instant. It is their stock in trade. As they washed, as they beat out the tapa cloth, as they wove the sennit string from cocoanut fiber, as they gathered the thatch for the roofs of their houses, or as they swept clean their houses and adjoining space, their voices were always raised to gossip with their nearest neighbors. Nothing missed their watchful eyes. News travels fast. An incident happens in one village and in an incredibly short time the news has been passed from house to house and village to village until the whole island has buzzed with the knowledge. The sun had been up several hours when the “Talofa” crawled slowly through the narrow entrance to the harbor, between the reefs, and anchored scarcely a stone’s throw from the shore. The rattle of her chain awoke Klinger. He arose at once. Fanua was at work preparing breakfast. He watched in silence from the window. He saw a boat lowered and shortly shove off for the beach. It grounded in front of his house. He waved a greeting. The count and Captain Scott stepped ashore.