Читать книгу Pacific Tales - Becke Louis - Страница 5

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A white, misty rain-squall swept down the mountain pass at the head of Lêla Harbour, plashed noisily across the deep waters of the land-locked bay and whirled away seaward.

Standing upon jutting ledges of the inner or harbour reef, a number of brown-skinned women and children were fishing. The tide was low and the water smooth, and as the fishers shook the raindrops from off their black tresses and shining skins of bronze they laughed and sang and called out to one another across the deep reef-pools.

“Ai-e-eh!” cried a tall, slender girl, naked to her hips, around which she wore, like her older and younger companions, a broad, woven sash of gaily-coloured banana fibre—“ai-e-eh! ’tis a cold rain, but now will the fish bite fast, and I shall take me home a heavier basket than any of ye here;” and then she deftly swung her long bamboo rod over the pool on whose rugged brink she stood.

“Tah! Listen to her!” called out a round-faced, merry-eyed little woman who fished on the other aide. “Listen to Niya the Wisehead! She hath not yet caught a fish, and now boasteth of the great basketful she will take home! Get thee home for thy father’s seine net, for thou canst not catch anything with thy rod;” and the speaker, with a good-humoured laugh, took a small fish out of the basket that hung at her side and threw it at the girl.

Niya, too, laughed merrily as she ducked her head and twisted her lithe young body sideways, and the fish, flying past her face, struck a boy who stood near to her in the back.

He swung round, and with mock ferocity hurled the fish back at she who threw it.

“That for thee, fat-faced Tulpé; and would that it had gone into thy big mouth and down thy throat and choked thee! Then would thy husband call me friend, and seek out another wife; for, look thou, Tulpé, thou art getting old and ugly now.”

A loud shriek of laughter from Niya, a merry, mocking echo from those about her, joined in with Tulpé’s own good-natured chuckle, and then, flinging down their rods and baskets, they sprang into the water one after another and played and laughed and gambolled like the children they were all in heart if not in years.

By and by the sun came out, hot and fierce, and the women and children, rods in hand and baskets on backs, made homewards to their village across the broken surface of the reef. Right before them it lay, a cluster of some two or three score of grey-thatched, saddle-backed houses, with slender sharp-pointed gables at either end.

Nearest to the beach and distinguishable from the others by its great size was the dwelling of Togusā, the chief of Lêla Harbour. At a distance of fifty feet or so from its canework sides a low wall of coral slabs surrounded it on four sides, with gateways at back and front. Within, the walled-in space was covered with snow-white pebbles of broken coral, save where a narrow pathway led from the front gateway to the open doorway of the house.

On came the fishers, the older of the women walking first in twos and threes, the young girls and boys following in a noisy, laughing crowd. But as they drew nearer to the low stone wall their babbling laughter died away, and they spoke to each other in lowered tones. For it had ever been the custom of Kusaie (Strong’s Island, the eastern outlier of the Caroline Archipelago) to speak in a whisper in the presence of a chief, and Togusā, chief of Lêla, was master of the lives of four thousand of the people. Other chiefs were there on Kusaie who lived at Utwe and Mout and Leassé, and whose people exceeded in numbers those of the chief of Lêla, but none were there whose name was so old and whose fame in battle would compare with his.

So, with softened steps and bodies bent, the women entered through the narrow gateway one by one and knelt down in front of the door in the manner peculiar to the women of the Caroline Islands, bringing their thighs together and turning their feet outward and backward. Apart from them, and clustering together, were the boys, each sitting cross-legged with outspread hands upon the pebbled ground. And then all, women, girls, and boys, bent their eyes to the ground and waited.

Presently there came to the open doorway of the chief’s house an old, white-haired woman, who supported her feeble steps with a stick of ebony wood. For a moment or two she looked at the people assembled before her, and then a girl who followed her placed upon the canework verandah of the house a broad, white mat, and spread it out for her to sit upon. Slowly the old woman stooped her time-worn frame and sat, and then the slave-girl crouched behind her, and, with full, luminous eyes, looked over her mistress’s shoulder.

Suddenly the dame raised her stick and tapped it twice on the cane work floor, and then, with a quick, soundless motion, the fishers rose, and with bent heads and stooping bodies crept up near to her and laid their baskets of fish silently at her feet.

But though they spoke not themselves, each one as she or he placed a basket down looked at Sipi, the slave, and made a slight movement of the lips, and Sipi, in a low voice and looking straight before her, murmured the giver’s name to the old woman.

“’Tis the gift of Kinio, the wife of Nara, to Seaa, the mother of Togusā the King.”

“’Tis the gift of Leja, the daughter of Naril, to Seaa, the mother of the King.”

And so, one by one, they laid down their tribute till the offering was finished and they had crept back again to the place where they had first awaited old Seaa’s coming, and now they sat and waited for the King’s mother to speak.

“Come hither, Niya.”

At the sound of the old woman’s voice the girl Niya came quickly out from amongst her companions and sat down beside the piled-up baskets of fish.

“Count thee out ten fish for Togusā the King, ten each for his wives, and two for Sipi, the slave.”

With deft hands the girl did the old dame’s bidding and placed the fish side by side upon narrow leaf platters brought to her by the young slave-girl.

“Good,” said old Seaa, smiling at the girl, for Niya was niece to Sikra, and Sikra was one of the King’s most trusted warriors and nephew to old Seaa.

“Good child. And now, tell the people that Togusā the King is sick, and so comes not out to-day to see their offerings of goodwill to him and his house. So let them away to their homes, taking with them all the fish they have brought save these fifty and two here before me.”

Again the women crept up, and each taking up her basket again walked slowly away through the gateway and disappeared among the various houses. But Niya, at a sign from the King’s mother, remained, and sat down beside Sipi, the slave.

By and by, with much stamping of feet and singing a loud chorus, came a party of men, tall, stalwart fellows, stripped to their waists, with their long black hair tied up in a knob at the back of their heads. As they reached the gate their song ceased, and each man placed the basket of taro or yams he carried at the feet of the old dame. From each basket the girl Niya, at old Seaa’s command, took one taro and a small yam for the King’s household; then the men, picking up the baskets again, followed the women into the village.

So for another hour came parties of men and women and children, brown, healthy, strong and vigorous, carrying their daily offerings to the King of fish and fowl and wild pigeons, and baked pigs and young coconuts, and bananas and other fruits of the rich and fertile Kusaie.

Then, when the last of them had come and gone, the slave-girl Sipi put a small conch shell to her lips and blew a note, and men and women—slaves like herself—appeared from the rear of the house and carried the baskets away to the King’s cook-houses.

* * * * *

This was the daily life of Lêla. At the very break of dawn, when the trees and grass were heavy with the dews of the night, and the flocks of mountain parrots screamed shrilly at the rising sun and the wild boar scurried away to his forest lair, the people were up and at work among their plantations or out upon the blue expanse of Lêla Harbour in their canoes. For though there was no need for them to do but the merest semblance of toil, yet it was and always had been the custom of the land for each family to bring a daily gift of food to the King. Sometimes if a whaleship lay outside the harbour the King would take all they brought, to sell to the ship in exchange for guns and powder, and bright Turkey red cloth; but beyond this he took but little of all that they gave him day after day. They were a happy, contented race, and their land was a land of wondrous fertility and smiling plenty.

* * * * *

Sometimes, even in those far-off days, a whale-ship cruising north-westwards to the Moluccas, or the coast of Japan, would sail close in, back her mainyard and send her boats ashore and wait till they returned laden to the gunwales with turtle, yams and fruit. Dearly would the crew—as they gazed upon the bright beaches and the thickly-clustered groves of palms amid which nestled the gray roofs of thatch—have liked the ship to have sailed in, and heard the cable rattle through the hawse-pipes as her anchor plunged through the glassy depths of Lêla Harbour. But Lêla was seldom entered by a ship of any size. Her boats might come in if the captain so choose, and the rough, reckless seamen might wander to and fro among the handsome, brown-skinned people and make sailors’ love to the laughing Kusaie maidens till the ship fired a gun for them to return; but the ship herself dared not enter. Not that there was danger of treachery from the people, but because of the narrow, tortuous passage and the fierce, swift current that ever eddied and swirled through its reef-bound sides. Once, indeed, in those olden days the captain of an English whaleship, that lay-to outside, had seen a small schooner lying snugly moored abreast of the King’s house, and had boldly sailed his own ship in and anchored beside the little trading vessel. In a week a dozen of his crew had deserted, lured away from the toils of a sailor’s life by the smiles of the Kusaie girls. Then he tried to get away before he lost any more men. Three times he tried to tow his ship out with her five boats, and thrice, to the secret joy of the Kusaie people and his crew, had he to return and anchor again; at the fourth attempt the ship struck and went to pieces on the reef.

In those wild days, and for long years afterwards, there were some five or six white men living on Kusaie. They were of that class of wanderers who are to be met with even now among the little known Caroline and Pelew Groups and on some of the isolated islands of the North Pacific. Of those that lived on Kusaie, however, our story has to do with but one, an old and almost decrepid sailor named Charles Westall, who then lived at Lêla under the protection of Togusā, as he had lived under the protection of that chief’s father thirty years before. With those white men who lived in the three other districts of the island he had had no communication for nearly ten years, although he was separated from them but half a day’s journey by boat or canoe; not that he did not desire to see them, but simply because the intense jealousy that prevailed between the various native chiefs who ruled over these districts made visiting a matter of danger and possible bloodshed. Each chief was extremely jealous of his white protégé, who, although he was exceedingly well treated and lived on the fat of the land, was yet kept under a friendly but rigid surveillance lest he should be tempted to leave his own district and settle in another.

Westall, therefore, as his years and infirmities increased, resigned himself to the knowledge that except when a ship might call at Lêla, he would not be likely to ever converse again in his mother tongue with men of his own colour. He was, although an uneducated man, one of singular energy and discernment, and had during his forty years’ residence on the island acquired a considerable influence over the chief Togusā and the leading native families. He was by trade a ship’s carpenter, and, attracted by the intelligence of the natives and the professions of friendship made to him by Togusā’s father, had deserted from his ship to live among them. Unlike many of his class, he was neither a drunkard nor a ruffian; and eventually marrying a daughter of one of the minor chiefs of Lêla, he had settled down on the island for a lifelong residence. As the years went by and his family increased, so did his status and influence with the natives, and at the time of our story he lived in semi-European style in Lêla village, about a stone’s throw from the house of Togusā. He had now some twenty or thirty children by his five wives—for in accordance with native custom he had to increase the number of his wives as his wealth and influence grew—and these had mostly intermarried with natives of pure blood, so that in course of years the old English sailor’s household resembled that of some Scriptural patriarch who was honoured in the land.

Early in the morning on the day following the scene described at the King’s house, old Westall was sitting outside his boatshed smoking his pipe and watching some of his white-brown grand-children at play, when a young native girl came quickly along the groves of breadfruit and coconut and called out that she had news for him—a ship, she said, was in sight.

“Come thou inside, little one,” said the old sailor, kindly, speaking in the Kusaie tongue. (Indeed he had but seldom occasion to speak English.)

The girl was Niya, the niece of Sikra, and was betrothed to Ted, one of old Westall’s younger sons. She was about fifteen or so, and was possessed of that graceful carriage and those faultlessly straight features common to women of the Micronesian Islands.

Seating herself on the ground beside the old man, and, in accordance with native fashion, not deigning to notice her lover, who was that moment at work in his father’s boatshed, the girl told Westall that she and some other girls had seen a small white-painted ship about four miles off, making towards Lêla.

The old sailor’s face instantly became troubled and he called to his son to come to him.

“Ted,” said the old man, speaking in English, “that mission ship has come at last, and now there’s goin’ to be a bit of trouble. You see if there won’t.”

Edward Westall, a short, thick-set youth of twenty, with a darker complexion than that of the girl who sat at his father’s feet, leant upon the adze he carried and said in his curious broken English: “How you know she’s mission’ry? Has you ever seen mission’ry ship?”

“No,” replied the old man, shortly; “an’ I don’t want to see one. But I know it’s a mission’ry ship. She’s painted white, an’ I heard from Captain Deaver of the Hattie K. Deaver that there was a mission ship at Honolulu two years ago, an’ she was painted white, an’ was comin’ here right through this group, blarst her!”

“Well, an’ what you goin’ to do? You think Togusā goin’ to let a mission’ry come ashore an’ live?”

“That’s just what I don’t know, boy. Togusā likes the white men, an’ maybe he may take to these Yankee psalm-singers. An’ if he does, it just means that you an’ me an’ all the rest of us will have to clear out of here and seek for a livin’ elsewheres. They is hungry beggars, these mission’ries, and drives every other white man away from wherever they settles down. An’ I’m gettin’ too old now to be badgered about by people like them.”

“W’y don’ you go and tell Togusā to keep ’em from comin’ ashore?”

The old man shook his head. “No good, boy. I managed to block one mission’ry from landing here—that feller that came here in the Shawnee whaler when you was a babby—an’ I’ve always been telling Togusā that it will be a bad day for him when he lets one of them come here, but,” and he shook his head again, “he’s a weak man, and just like a child. His father was another sort, an’ had a head chock full o’ sense.”

For a moment the old seaman seemed sunk in thought, and then suddenly aroused himself.

“Ted,” he said, “just you go along with Niya to her uncle Sikra and tell him an’ Jorani an’ the other big chiefs to come here an’ have a talk with me. Togusā is sick, an’ so I can’t get in to see him.”

Throwing down his adze, the young half-caste beckoned to the girl to rise and come with him. With that passive obedience common among women of her race when spoken to by a man, the girl instantly rose and followed her betrothed husband, who, from the broad blue stripes of tattooing that covered his naked arms and thighs, would never have been taken for anything else but a pure-blooded native.

Then old Westall, still wearing a troubled look upon his brown and wrinkled face, walked slowly back to his thatched dwelling and sat down to wait for the native chiefs to talk with them over the danger that—from his point of view—menaced them all.

* * * * *

Four miles away the mission brig—for such indeed was the strange ship—was sailing slowly along the precipitous northern coast of the island. On the poop deck were four clerical gentlemen clothed in heavy black, and each bore in his face an expression of great interest as the various points of the beautiful island opened to their view.

Seated a little apart from the others, as befitted his position and dignity as their leader, was the Reverend Gilead Bawl. He was a man of nearly six feet in height, with shaven upper lip and white beard, and his eyes, keen, cold and gray, had for the past ten minutes been bent over a copy of the Scriptures, outspread upon his huge knees.

Of his four colleagues all that need be said is that in manner of speech, dress, and appearance generally they were minor editions of the Reverend Bawl. They were but strangers in the Islands, having only arrived at Honolulu from Boston six months previously and had been selected by their principal—the Reverend Gilead—to accompany him on his present mission.

Presently Mr. Bawl closed the book and rising from his seat walked up to the captain, who was anxiously scrutinising the line of reef along which the mission brig was sailing.

“Friend,” said he, placing his hand with condescending familiarity on the captain’s shoulder, and speaking in soft, gentle tones, “it hath pleased Gawd to bless us with a prosperous v’yage to this, the first cawner of the Vineyard, and ere we sail into the haven before us and ventoor our lives among the ragin’ heathen, it would be well for us to stay the ship awhile while the brethren and myself, together with the mariners of this chosen bark, render up our offerins’ of praise and thanksgivin’ for the manifold mercies vouchsafed to us upon the stormy ocean.”

A subdued murmur of approval came from one of the younger missionaries, who, clasping his hands together, gazed with a rapt expression at Mr. Bawl.

The captain of the brig looked and felt uncomfortable. “Jest as you please, sir, but I would like to get the ship to an anchor as quickly as possible. I’ve never been here before and this Strong’s Islander we have brought with us seems kinder stupid, and I really believe the creature doesn’t know enough for me to take the ship in by his directions. I guess he’s a fool—”

The missionary’s face assumed a loftily severe expression.

“Captain Branden, you surprise me—nay, more, you pain me. This young man”—and he placed his large, coarse hand on the head of an undersized native, clothed like himself, in a long black coat and wearing a stovepipe hat with a wide, battered rim—“you do, indeed, pain me when you speak of this pious young man—one of Gawd’s ministers—as a fool.”

The native he indicated, who, twelve months before, had been one of the crew of an American whaleship, but was now the Reverend Purity Lakolalai, turned a dull, stupid face upon the captain, and, encouraged by the protecting glance of his white leader, muttered something under his breath.

“Well, I meant no offence, Mr. Bawl; but I feel somewhat anxious about getting to an anchor as soon as possible.”

“Captain Branden,” said the missionary, pompously, “it is my wish and the wish of the brethren with me that we offer up supplication for the success of our cause. Will you kindly call the mariners to the stern of the ship, so that they may join with us in devotional exercises befittin’ the occasion?”

The master of the brig nodded; and muttering the words “darned rot” under his breath gave the order for the crew to lay aft.

It is necessary to explain that the presence of the Reverend Mr. Bawl and his brethren was largely due to the fact that twelve months previously the Reverend Purity Lakolalai—then a native sailor—had run away from his ship at Honolulu. He was a low-caste Strong’s Islander, and spoke whaleship English fluently. By some means he came under the notice of the Reverend Gilead, who, learning that he was a native of Kusaie, immediately set about his conversion, with the result that Lakolalai, being in a certain sense a man of the world and deeply sensible of the material advantages to be derived from his new friends, expressed the deepest grief at his own and his countrymen’s ignorance of the truths of the gospel. In the course of a week or two reports were sent home to Boston that, by a marvellous dispensation of Providence, an intelligent young “chief” had been rescued from the degrading life of a whaler’s foc’s’cle, and had “greatly moved” the American brethren at Honolulu by his pictures of the hopeless savagery and sinful customs of his people. Furthermore, he had become “concerned” for his soul’s welfare, and was now at that time “eagerly imbibing the Truth with tears of thankfulness.” As a natural corollary to this intelligence subscriptions were asked for to send out a band of brethren to plant the Word on the heathen field of Kusaie. In due course the subscriptions and brethren came, and then followed the imposing function of ordaining Lakolalai, formerly a slave and a “burning brand,” a minister of the American Board of Missions. Then came the departure of the mission brig from Honolulu with the missionary party just described.

An hour afterward, the devotions concluded, the brig sailed into Lêla Harbour and dropped anchor off the King’s house.

* * * * *

At eight o’clock next morning nearly a thousand natives were assembled on the gravelled space in front of the King’s house, all waiting to see the white strangers land. Already a rumour had gone forth that they were the bearers of a message from a great king to their own chief Togusā, but who the white king was and what the message was about none knew.

In a few minutes a boat left the ship and rowed to the beach, and four white men, wearing stovepipe hats and carrying white umbrellas, stepped out and walked up to the King’s gateway; at their heels followed Mr. Lakolalai, dressed in exactly the same manner, and carrying, in addition to his umbrella, a large, heavy volume.

At the entrance to the King’s grounds the party halted, and then some discussion took place between them and Brother Lakolalai, who seemed inclined to fall back.

“’Tis but the weakness of the flesh,” said Mr. Bawl to his brethren; “our brother is somewhat afraid of venturing into the presence of this pore heathen king.”

“Yes,” said Brother Lakolalai, with emphasis, and, in his excitement, reverting to his whaleship English. “Me ’fraid. You see, I no belong to Lêla; I belong to Utwe—on other side of this island. By — I afraid to go inside King’s house here. He d— big king and break my head.”

A pained look came into the brethren’s eyes, but the Reverend Gilead at any rate was not wanting in courage, and seizing the Reverend Purity Lakolalai by the arm he drew him along with him. Followed by the brethren, they ascended the steps that led up to the King’s house, and in another moment were inside.

The room was a very large one, capable of holding half the population of the village. At the further end, seated upon mats, were the leading chiefs. Above them, lying upon a slightly raised couch, was Togusā, the sick chief. He was a man of about thirty, with a thick jet-black beard and pale features, and his countenance showed traces of recent illness.

The moment the missionaries entered, the natives, who were gathered outside, followed them in, the men sitting on one side of the room, the women on the other. As soon as Mr. Bawl and his brethren had approached within a few feet of the King, the missionary motioned to his companions to stop, and advanced alone with hand outstretched.

“You are King Togusā; I am the Reverend Gilead Bawl, and I bring you peace beyond price an’ a message from the King ev Kings.”

The sick chief shook his head feebly in return, and failing to understand Mr. Bawl’s remark, inquired in broken English if he had “come to buy pigs and yams.”

“Not pigs, my dear brother, nor yet yams; but souls;” and the Reverend Gilead smiled benignantly, and then with the rest of the brethren sat down upon the rude stool to which the King motioned them. The Reverend Purity Lakolalai, however, sat quite apart from them, on the floor, with a very uneasy expression on his face.

For a moment or so Togusā spoke in an undertone to his chiefs. He was anxious to learn the motive of the white men’s visit, and felt that his limited knowledge of English was not equal to the task of carrying on a conversation with them. Presently, however, his eye lighted up when he saw, coming through the doorway, the old white man, Westall, who was attended by four or five of his half-caste sons.

“Tell Challi (Charlie) to come and talk to these men in their own tongue,” he said to one of those of his chiefs who sat about him.

Dressed in his seamen’s suit of blue dungaree, and holding his broad palm-leaf hat in his hand, the old seaman advanced through the crowded room, and first greeting the King and chiefs in the native language, he turned to the missionaries.

“Good-day, gentlemen. My name is Charlie Westall. I live here. The King wishes me to ask you what is your business and in what way he can serve you. You see, gentlemen, he doesn’t speak but little English, and so he wishes me to talk for him.”

Then the Reverend Gilead Bawl, rising to his feet, extended his right hand, and pointing a large forefinger at the old white man, spoke.

“Old man, I hev’ heerd of you. You are one of those unfor’nit persons who are out of the Lord’s fold, and whose dangerous and pernicious example to these pore heathens has done sich harm. You may tell the King from me that I cannot talk to him through such a wicked man as you air.”

Old Westall laughed a soft, sarcastic laugh. “Thank ye, sir, I’ll tell him that,” and then, turning to the King, he said—

“The white men have come here to give thee and thy people a new religion; but he will not talk of it to thee, O Togusā, by my lips.”

“Why is that?” said the King, mildly, his dark eyes moving alternately from the face of the missionary to that of the old white man.

“Because, he sayeth, I am a bad and wicked man, and have taught thee and thy people evil.”

The King’s eyes flashed angrily, and he made a movement as if he would spring from his couch, but in an instant he was calm again.

“That is well, Challi. Let him, then, if he mistrusts thee, find some one else to tell me of his business here in Kusaie.”

“The King, sir,” said old Westall, again addressing himself to the missionary, “says that he is willing to hear what you have to say—if not through me, then through any one of you or your ship’s company who can speak his language.”

The calm, quiet tones of the old seaman, covering, as it did the rage and contempt he felt for the person addressed, deceived not only the Reverend Mr. Bawl and his colleagues, but their coloured brother, the Reverend Purity Lakolalai as well. He now stepped forward, Bible in one hand, stovepipe hat in the other. An encouraging smile on Mr. Bawl’s face gave him courage to proceed.

Then, in the midst of a dead and ominous silence, the native minister addressed the King. His speech was a curious one, and not at all one that even Mr. Bawl, with all his ministerial pedantry and silly pomposity, would have approved of had he known its gist. First, he warned the King and his people of the wrath to come if they continued in heathenism; secondly, that old Westall and all other white men but missionaries would be taken away by a man-of-war, and cast into a lake of burning fire called Hell; thirdly, that the good and chosen people lived at Honolulu only, and the Reverend Gilead Bawl was a very rich man, and the friend of the President of the United States and God; fourthly, that if Togusā would cast away his idols, and keep but one wife, and take the missionaries to his bosom, that he would not be taken away to the lake of fire with the bad white men, but when he died his soul would be taken in a man-of-war to Honolulu first, and then to Boston, to live with God and President Andrew Jackson; fifthly, that he, Lakolalai, had been a very bad man, but now he had been “washed” and was filled with a powerful “ejon” (witchcraft) which would make him live for ever.

With his chin supported on his right hand the King of Lêla listened with unmoved countenance to the native minister’s speech. Then, when he had finished, he turned to Sikra, his favourite chief.

“Who is this man?” he asked, and at the savage energy of his tones the native minister quailed.

“He is Lakolalai, a pig (a slave) from Utwe. He went away from here two years ago.”

“Good,” and a grim smile stole over the King’s features. “Thou hast heard what he has said, and the lies he has told me. Does he and these foolish white men think that I, Togusā, who ever since my birth have known white men, have not heard of these wizards they call missionaries, who would steal the hearts of my people from their gods, and make slaves of them to the god who rules over the lake of fire—bah!” and he spat fiercely on the ground, and then shook his hand threateningly at the missionaries. “Away from here I tell thee. I have heard of thee and know of thy wizardry. Shall I, Togusā, be a like fool to Kamehameha of Hawaii (The King of the Hawaiian Islands) and yield up my country and my wives and my slaves to such dogs as thee? Go, get thee away to some other land while thy lives are yet safe. But yet”—and here he shot a quick glance at old Westall—“shalt thou stay here awhile and see how Togusā shall do justice upon this dog of Utwe, this Lakolalai, who comes into the presence of the King of Lêla and threatens him with the vengeance of the Christ God, and the Lake of Boiling Fire. Take him, men of Lêla, and bind him like as a hog is bound for the slaughter.”

But with a wild, despairing cry the native minister had thrown himself at the King’s feet, and was pleading for mercy, while from the assembled crowd of people there came a low, savage murmur—the desire for vengeance upon a slave who had insulted their King.

“Gentlemen”—and old Westall advanced to the now alarmed missionaries—“you had better get aboard again. I bear you no ill-will for the hard words you have spoken, but you have come upon a fool’s errand. The King will have no missionaries here.”

“Shameless and wicked old man,” said one of the younger missionaries, “would you incite these raging heathens to deeds of bloodshed? Think you that we, the ministers of God, are to be lightly turned away by threats? No!” and with a firm hand he grasped Gilead Bawl by the arm. “I for one shall not desert my Master, but cheerfully give up my life for the Cause.”

With a contemptuous smile old Westall turned away from him and walked over to and stood beside the King. Then he raised his hand.

“Gentlemen, you have had your say. Now let me have mine. There is no danger to any of you—at least to any of you who are white. But listen; for forty years I have lived here among these people, and as long as I do live here no mission’ry shall ever set foot again on this island. These natives may all go to hell as you say, but that is none of your business—they’ve been goin’ there cheerful enough for the last five hundred years. Now, don’t be afraid, no one is going to hurt you, but the King wants to ask you a question or two before you go.”

With a pale face, but a certain amount of resolution in his cold gray eyes, the Reverend Gilead Bawl stepped out from the others and spoke again to the King.

“Beware, O Togusā, of this old man. He is a bad man,” and then he suddenly ceased as the King raised himself upon his tattooed and naked arm.

“Christ-man, answer me this. This dog here”—and he pointed scornfully at the grovelling figure of the native minister—“this dog sayeth that he will live for ever by reason of the new faith he hath gotten from thee.”

“Man,” said the missionary, springing forward, after old Westall had interpreted the King’s words, “I implore you, nay, command you, on peril of the loss of your immortal soul, to give this unhappy heathen my true answer. Tell him that Lakolalai, God’s minister, will have eternal life hereafter, even if these godless heathens now take his life.”

Then Westall turned to the King.

“The Christ-man sayeth, O Togusā, that this man, Lakolalai, will have life for ever.”

“Ha,” said Togusā, “now shall we see if this be true.”

Two men advanced, and seizing the native minister, stood him upon his trembling feet.

“Stand aside, gentlemen, if you please,” said old Westall quietly to the missionaries. They moved aside, and then Togusā, calling to Sikra, the chief, pointed to the wretched Lakolalai.

“Take thou thy spear, Sikra, and thrust it through this man’s body. And if he live, then shall I believe that he will live for ever.”

And Sikra, with a fierce smile, seized his heavy, ebony wood spear, and as he raised his right hand and poised the weapon, the men who held Lakolalai’s arms suddenly stretched them widely apart.

The spear sped from Sikra’s hand, and spinning through the convert’s body, fell near the feet of the Reverend Gilead Bawl and his brethren at the other end of the room.

* * * * *

In another hour the mission ship was under weigh again, and old Westall was seated at home smoking his pipe and playing with his grandchildren, and smiling inwardly as he glanced seaward and saw the white sails of the brig far away to the westward.

But, after all, the visit of the mission ship was long remembered by the people of Kusaie, and for their wickedness were they sorely afflicted; for the garments of the late Reverend Purity Lakolalai were given by Togusā to one of his favourite slaves, who soon afterwards died of measles, and in less than a month seven hundred other godless heathens followed him, and old Charlie Westall, with Ted and Niya his wife, and his maid-servants and man-servants and all that was his cleared away from the disease-stricken island, and sailed in search of a new land called Ponape, which lieth far to the westward.