“Avao,” Commander Tazewell said as he was about to leave the party at the dock to return to the ship, “your courage to-night was of a higher order than mere men display. You have taught your own people and even others a lesson in loyalty and honor. They did not see it then, but some of them will after they have had time to think over your simple words. “What you said to the count,” he added as he shook her hand, “was told to Kataafa by a chief at my side in his native tongue. The great chief’s face showed no anger. I thought I read admiration and maybe a consciousness of guilt. Kataafa, I fear, has been badly advised by his trusted white friends.” Avao was too greatly touched to express her gratitude in English. A flood of her own poetic tongue, only partly understood by the American captain, was her answer. The midshipmen left the two young girls at the consulate and returned toward the landing. “It was the count’s own fault,” Phil declared. “He sent word to Avao that she must lead, and by the Kapuan custom, a Tapau cannot refuse.” “Well,” Sydney replied, “as O’Neil would say, ‘he got his!’” The easy-going life of the natives in Kapua now seemed to have again returned. Under the new government many improvements were made. The streets of Ukula were cleaned, and a campaign was made by the new government upon the native neglect in leaving their fruit to decay in the open, thus increasing the great pest of flies. The trade of the Kapuan firm flourished. The foreign traders, English and American, complained to their consuls bitterly. No one would buy from them. When they asked their farmer customers the reason, they received the smiling answer, “We shall soon belong to Herzovinia, so we wish to see how we like to buy our supplies from them.” Several weeks thus went by without important disagreements between the “de facto” government and the foreign consuls. Kataafa remained quietly in Kulinuu. His army was not, however, disbanded. Their guns for the time being were hidden from view, but the warriors who had assembled from all parts of the islands in answer to the call of their choice for king did not return to their homes. All the natives who had been loyal to Panu, except the rightful king and his high chief Tuamana, were again living their usual lives ashore. The latter two refused to acknowledge Kataafa, and remained on board the “Sitka.” The two rival factions lived side by side, apparently without discord. The women engaged in many heated altercations, and frequently spread disquieting alarms of impending strife between the two political parties, but nothing ever came of these prophecies except now and then a personal encounter between natives of diverging views, which was settled without recourse to anything more hurtful than fists and clubs.