‘Ah! now I see Queen Mab has been with you’
γλαῦκ’Ἀθήναζε
‘You send out teachers of religion to undermine and ruin thepeople.’
Black Flag Proclamation to the French, 1883.
The moonlight, in wave on wave of silver, flooded all the Sacred Island. Faraway and faint ran the line of the crests of Samoa, like the hills of heaven inthe old ballad, or a scene in the Italian opera. Then came a voice from theCalling Place, and the smooth sea thrilled, and all the fishes leaped, and theSacred Isle itself was moved, and shuddered to its inmost heart. Again andagain came the voice, and now it rose and fell in the cadences of a magicalsong (or Karakia, if we must have local colour), and the wordswere not of this world. Then, behold, the smooth seas began to break and plashround the foremost cape of the Holy Island, and to close again behind, likewater before the keel and behind the stern of a running ship, so they plashed,and broke, and fell. Next the surface was stirred far off with the gambollingand sporting of innumerable fishes; the dolphin was tumbling in the van; theflying fish hovered and shone and sank; and clearer, always, and yet more clearcame the words of the song from Samoa. Clearer and louder, moment by moment,rose the voice of Queen Mab, where she stood on the Calling Place of the Gods,and chanted to the Islands, and to the sea, and the dwellers in the sea. It wasnot that she left her stand, nor came nearer, but the Sacred Island itself wassteering straight, like a magical barque, drawn by the wonderful song, to themystic shore of Samoa. Now Queen Mab, where she stood among her court, with thestrange brown fairies of the Southern Ocean, could behold the Sacred Island,with all its fairy crew. Beautiful things they seemed, as the sailing isle drewnearer, beautiful and naked, and brave with purple pan-danus flowers, and withred and yellow necklets of the scented seed of the pandanus. At last Queen Mab,the fairy in the fluttering wings of green, clapped her hands, and, with alittle soft shock, the Sacred Island ran in and struck on the hau