lit torches, and drove out the women, and brought young cocoa-nuts, and prised open Romeo's jaws with a digging-stick, and forced the milk down his throat; and all the while the teacher sat by in a clean white shirt, bursting to question the reviving Romeo about the details of his love affair, to draw a moral therefrom for his next Sunday's sermon.

At last Romeo, half drowned in cocoa-nut milk, spluttered, coughed, and opened his eyes. He thought perhaps for a moment that he was in another world; but this was no time for vain regrets, for the teacher had them in his grip, and was cross-examining the frightened Juliet as to how many months their liaison had continued. Meanwhile the village officer arrived with a rusty pair of handcuffs, and before daylight Romeo, but half recovered from his journey to "that bourne," found himself embarked on that rougher journey over the rocky path that leads to the Tuatuacoko court-house.

Why could not the story have ended here, with the romance all unspoilt, with the old story of love till death, and faithless timorous beauty? But I must tell the story to the end as it really happened, and not as I would fain tell it.

The Commissioner's court sat, the assessors were sworn, the charge was attempted suicide, the chief witness for the prosecution was Juliet, and poor Romeo was in the dock. He was quite the ugliest man I have ever seen-deeply pitted with smallpox, and with a mouth which, seen full face, might have extended completely round his head for all one could see to the contrary. The defence was ingenious. Romeo pleaded that the people of Verona had treated him so badly that they deserved a fright and a warning, and the alleged poison was nothing more noxious than a decoction of orange-bark mixed in an old kerosenebottle; that he had drunk this off and shammed being dead until he saw the joke had gone far enough, and that then he came to life again. The empty gin-bottle was brought, the dregs poured into a saucer, and a policeman was sent into the bush to bring some real Langaingai. It was a slender, small-leafed plant, about eighteen inches in height, with a fibrous woody bark. The bark was scraped in court, and kneaded up with a little water, and strained. The result was a muddylooking yellow fluid. The alleged poison smelt abominably of kerosene; but the liquids had to be compared somehow, and the assessors, one English and

one native, volunteered to furnish the vile body. The court also tried half a teaspoonful of each. After imbibing the kerosene, one became conscious of an acrid biting flavour, unlike any known taste. There was no

Of the after

doubt that the liquids were identical. effects, I need only say that the court adjourned, and no more evidence was taken that day, both court and assessors spending their time in drinking cocoa-nut milk, and trying to resume control over their interior mechanism. When they did recover, Romeo was convicted.

"THE

THE WOMAN FINA U.

HE woman knows no shame, she defies the law, she despises your orders, and she says she will never leave the white man."

"Then let them marry."

"I told her that, and she said it was not the foreigner's wish to marry her. But you are the Governor. It is for you to punish evil-doers. All Vavau is ashamed because of this woman."

"Arrest her, then, and bring her here."

At sunset the chiefs had met at the ruinous wooden villa that is the Government House. In the central hall, once gay with paint and gilding, they sat crosslegged before the kava-bowl, young Laifone the Governor in the seat of honour. And into this august assembly Ana Finau, the abandoned contemner of public opinion and the law of the land, was led trem

bling, the only woman in the room.

The men stopped

talking and looked at her with hard unsympathetic faces. What pity should they have for a countrywoman of theirs who could stoop to one of these vile foreigners, and leave her own kind for the society of a trader- —a white man?

The policeman who brought her told her roughly to sit down before the Governor, who glanced at her and bade his companion continue the story the girl's entrance had interrupted. The chiefs who had come from a distance asked their neighbours who the girl was, and why she had been brought. She meanwhile sat on the floor, her feet doubled under her, as the manner is, her eyes cast down, but with a certain dogged air of resistance about her, as if she was prepared for the worst.

The story was finished. From Laifone's hearty laugh it might be guessed that it was not over-refined, and the policeman called his attention to Ana Finau. It was no time for business, for the kava was nearly pounded, the two kerosene-lamps were lighted, and Laifone was bored with the cares of office. He held up his hand, and the ringing thud of the pounding kava-stones ceased.