country. He won't like the little boys on his own estate to know
the great Sir Lionel was lifted up against his will, carried about
like a baby, and set down in a bracken-bed. Indeed, I was more than
sorry to have to do such a thing to a man of his years; but you see
he WOULD have it. It's the only way to deal with these tabooing
chiefs. You must face them and be done with it. In the Caroline
Islands, once, I had to do the same thing to a cazique who was
going to cook and eat a very pretty young girl of his own
retainers. He wouldn't listen to reason; the law was on his side;
so, being happily NOT a law-abiding person myself, I took him up in
my arms, and walked off with him bodily, and was obliged to drop
him down into a very painful bed of stinging plants like nettles,
so as to give myself time to escape with the girl clear out of his
clutches. I regretted having to do it so roughly, of course; but
there was no other way out of it."

As he spoke, for the first time it really came home to Frida's mind
that Bertram Ingledew, standing there before her, regarded in very
truth the Polynesian chief and Sir Lionel Longden as much about the
same sort of unreasoning people--savages to be argued with and
cajoled if possible; but if not, then to be treated with calm
firmness and force, as an English officer on an exploring expedition
might treat a wrathful Central African kinglet. And in a dim sort
of way, too, it began to strike her by degrees that the analogy was
a true one, that Bertram Ingledew, among the Englishmen with whom
she was accustomed to mix, was like a civilised being in the midst
of barbarians, who feel and recognise but dimly and half-
unconsciously his innate superiority.

By the time they had reached the gate on the other side of the