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As my visitors from the Bounty approached the house I knew instinctively that Christian had news for me, but he had been so much among the Indians that he had acquired some notion of their ceremonial ideas of politeness, which demand a decent interval of light conversation before any important announcement is made.

Maimiti greeted her lover affectionately, and old Hitihiti had mats spread for us in the shade and ordered drinking coconuts to be fetched. My host had asked me, as a last favour, to have made for him a model of the Bounty’s launch, which he admired greatly. He believed that with the aid of this model his native shipwrights would be able to build a boat, since I had explained to him the process of warping a plank. I had entrusted the model making to Smith, who had completed the task in less than a week, with every dimension true to scale. He walked behind the others, followed by Bal’hadi, who carried the model on her shoulder. Hitihiti’s face lit up at sight of it.

“Now I shall start my boat,” he said to me in the native tongue. “You have kept your word and I am well content!”