“No think devil,” said he soothingly.  “Think all-e-same fool.”

“Uma, she devil?” I asked again.

“No, no; no devil.  Devil stop bush,” said the young man.

I was looking in front of me across the bay, and I saw the hanging front of the woods pushed suddenly open, and Case, with a gun in his hand, step forth into the sunshine on the black beach.  He was got up in light pyjamas, near white, his gun sparkled, he looked mighty conspicuous; and the land-crabs scuttled from all round him to their holes.

“Hullo, my friend!” says I, “you no talk all-e-same true.  Ese he go, he come back.”

“Ese no all-e-same; Ese Tiapolo,” says my friend; and, with a “Good-bye,” slunk off among the trees.

I watched Case all round the beach, where the tide was low; and let him pass me on the homeward way to Falesa.  He was in deep thought, and the birds seemed to know it, trotting quite near him on the sand, or wheeling and calling in his ears.  When he passed me I could see by the working of his lips that he was talking to himself, and what pleased me mightily, he had still my trade mark on his brow, I tell you the plain truth:  I had a mind to give him a gunful in his ugly mug, but I thought better of it.

All this time, and all the time I was following home, I kept repeating that native word, which I remembered by “Polly, put the kettle on and make us all some tea,” tea-a-pollo.

“Uma,” says I, when I got back, “what does Tiapolo mean?”

“Devil,” says she.

“I thought AITU was the word for that,” I said.

“AITU ’nother kind of devil,” said she; “stop bush, eat Kanaka.  Tiapolo big chief devil, stop home; all-e-same Christian devil.”

“Well then,” said I, “I’m no farther forward.  How can Case be Tiapolo?”

“No all-e-same,” said she.  “Ese belong Tiapolo; Tiapolo too much like; Ese all-e-same his son.  Suppose Ese he wish something, Tiapolo he make him.”

“That’s mighty convenient for Ese,” says I.  “And what kind of things does he make for him?”

Well, out came a rigmarole of all sorts of stories, many of which (like the dollar he took from Mr. Tarleton’s head) were plain enough to me, but others I could make nothing of; and the thing that most surprised the Kanakas was what surprised me least — namely, that he would go in the desert among all the AITUS.  Some of the boldest, however, had accompanied him, and had heard him speak with the dead and give them orders, and, safe in his protection, had returned unscathed.  Some said he had a church there, where he worshipped Tiapolo, and Tiapolo appeared to him; others swore that there was no sorcery at all, that he performed his miracles by the power of prayer, and the church was no church, but a prison, in which he had confined a dangerous AITU.  Namu had been in the bush with him once, and returned glorifying God for these wonders.  Altogether, I began to have a glimmer of the man’s position, and the means by which he had acquired it, and, though I saw he was a tough nut to crack, I was noways cast down.