moved stiffly and by starts and jerks like an automaton. A gust of
wind would have blown him away. He weighed ninety pounds.

But the immense thing about him was the power with which he ruled.
Oolong Atoll was one hundred and forty miles in circumference. One
steered by compass course in its lagoon. It was populated by five
thousand Polynesians, all strapping men and women, many of them
standing six feet in height and weighing a couple of hundred pounds.
Oolong was two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land. Twice a
year a little schooner called to collect copra. The one white man on
Oolong was McAllister, petty trader and unintermittent guzzler; and he
ruled Oolong and its six thousand savages with an iron hand. He said
come, and they came, go, and they went. They never questioned his will
nor judgment. He was cantankerous as only an aged Scotchman can be,
and interfered continually in their personal affairs. When Nugu, the
king's daughter, wanted to marry Haunau from the other end of the
atoll, her father said yes; but McAllister said no, and the marriage
never came off. When the king wanted to buy a certain islet in the
lagoon from the chief priest, McAllister said no. The king was in debt
to the Company to the tune of 180,000 cocoanuts, and until that was
paid he was not to spend a single cocoanut on anything else.

And yet the king and his people did not love McAllister. In truth,
they hated him horribly, and, to my knowledge, the whole population,
with the priests at the head, tried vainly for three months to pray
him to death. The devil-devils they sent after him were awe-inspiring,
but since McAllister did not believe in devil-devils, they were
without power over him. With drunken Scotchmen all signs fail. They
gathered up scraps of food which had touched his lips, an empty
whiskey bottle, a cocoanut from which he had drunk, and even his