"Plack!" he exclaimed. "It's horrible! It's disgusting! They have been cutting off beople's heads!"
"Fourteen by one count," I said; "twenty-two by another."
"Gabtain," said he with a look of extraordinary gravity, "dere's worse nor that!"
"I have it straight from Papalangi Mativa himself."
"Excellency," said Papalangi Mativa, "perhaps it is not high-chief-known to thee that I and mine come from a noble Savai'i stock, and that the son of my mother's sister, a stripling named O, numbered himself among the enemy and was to-day killed and his head taken on the field of Vaitele."
[Illustration: "'This is a black business, Silver Tongue,' I said."]
"_Aue!_" I said, which in Kanaka is being sympathetic.
"Dat is not all," said Silver Tongue. "Listen, gabtain!"
"The warrior that killed O was To'oto'o, the _matai_," continued Papalangi Mativa with the air of one announcing the end of the world.
"To'oto'o," cried Silver Tongue; "why, Rosalie's uncle, the _faipule_, in whose house this very minute the head of my murdered relation lies!"
"'Pon my soul," I exclaimed, "this is really unfortunate!"
"Unfordunate!" cried Silver Tongue; "is it with such a word you describe two hearts broken, two lives plasted, the fairest prospect with suddenly crash the curdain led down!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "It's disagreeable, I admit, but I can't see what difference it can make to you and Rosalie."
"An Oppenstedt," said Silver Tongue, "could never indermarry with the family of a murderer, and least of all with a family that had the head of my dead wife's relation cut off and carried with gapers and cries of joy down the main street of Apia and past my place of peeziness!"
"Do you mean to say it's all off with you and Rosalie?" I demanded.
Silver Tongue nodded grimly. "All off," he said.
"And you're going to break my girl's heart," I cried with what I think, under the circumstances, was a very justifiable indignation, "because the son of the aunt of your father-in-law has had his head cut off by poor Rosalie's adopted uncle?"
"Old friend," I said, "let me go before I say something I might regret." I got up without waiting for any answer and strode into the street, too consumed with anger to utter another word. I walked along the beach, stopping here and there to discuss the news of the battle with those of my friends I happened to meet, until at last I passed Savalalo and drew near To'oto'o's house at Songi. Rosalie was standing at the gate, and when she saw me she ran up, threw her arms round my neck and kissed me. I had never known her so excited or so gay, and even in the dark I could see that her beautiful eyes were shining.