“A DIFFERENT KIND OF VESSEL.”

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bloodshot were their eyes and so wild was their appearance; but, thank God! we had no strong drink to set our already boiling blood on fire with.

Valé, who was the only one of the group known by name to Mr. Wakefield, said in reply to his enquiries:

"We are all alarmed; we thought you were the vessel of yesterday."

"What kind of a vessel was that?" asked Mr. Wakefield. "A different kind-angry men who steal us; but we knew your shoulders, Waykay; those are Waykay's shoulders,' said we; and so we are come out."

"Where is Malagai?" inquired Mr. Wakefield.

"Inside," answered Valé, pointing to the great Kiala close by. Then, for the first time, I noticed that the old place on the little coral peninsular was in ruins.

Stepping over the high threshold of the canoe-hole in the gable wall of the Kiala, we found the western side (or right hand, as you would call it), partitioned off into small rooms, while into the shoreward end of the vast building sloped the broad roof of a new house, inside of which Malagai was, and whither he had retired from his late home, which had been washed away by a very high tide; Malagai having had to swim ashore among his wives and his floating domestic articles.

All looked changed and disturbed. Whispers of war and revenge hissed in every ear; war with the Ambupono people at the back of the island; and revenge on the treacherous Whites who had stolen no less than one hundred men and boys and carried them off no one knew whither.

Four strange vessels had passed while we had been in Happy Island, the only ones my people had ever seen besides their friend the Aurora.

Malagai was very wroth, as well he might be; for among those stolen were some of Pombuana's bravest fighting men ; and now the Ambupono must be fought without them.

His stern inquiry was: "What satisfaction will the Bishop give us?"

Mr. Wakefield's friends tried to dissuade him from staying ashore in this disturbed state of affairs; but he begged of them not to do so, as he thought there was all the more need of his being on the spot. So after the usual leave-taking he was left alone once more. You can imagine how great the excitement was, when I tell you the people had no heart for sambeeree, but stood in muttering groups, or sat round their fires, brooding over their wrongs, and stirring their warlike spirit. Three or four small canoes at the most put off to the Aurora, even after her identity had been made out.

Only a few weeks before there had been a desperate battle with the Ambupono, near the passage between Uri and Matambala, in which the Uri had come off second best. Twenty heads had been carried off by the enemy, and the bodies thrown to the sharks; but a great Ambupono Chief had been slain, and the Uri sought to partake of his strength by feasting upon his flesh and blood.

It was my intention to stay with Percy in Uri until my brother, Diara, should come from Rota to fetch me, which he would do as soon as he had heard of our arrival; for as the vessel had not stayed off Matambala on the way down, he could get no presents until he came to see us.

CHAPTER XXVII.

NONI.

I was not at all in a good state of mind at this time. I had been raised so high that my ambition had beeu kindled, which in its turn heated my jealousy, while there was my natural sulkiness at hand to supply fuel for the fire.

I smoked to very great excess; partly, I must confess, out of mere opposition, and partly because the clouds of smoke seemed appropriate to the clouded condition of my mind. To begin with another "I," I felt jealous of Rogani, and even of Kui, when I saw that Mr. Wakefield was not blind to their many good qualities, which good qualities became an offence

to me.

Besides this, my dear Reader, I really do believe that I was bilious; I was too ill-tempered, even for me, and such a supposition does not appear incredible, when I consider what a quadruped I had made of myself during the voyage down, with pea-soup and "plum-duff."

There were times when I even hated Percy, hated Rogani, hated myself.

I had heard news, too, which occupied my mind much more than all the rumours of war and the villanies of the menstealers. Talana had told me that Toroa wanted to buy Noni for his son Iru. Perhaps it would have been more direct to have began by telling you that I was in love-Pombuana love and did not see my way out of it.

Arthur Rogani told Percy about Toroa's intention, for he did not like the idea of his own sister marrying a person whom our friend used to call with no little emphasis a lout, and whom he himself regarded as a continuation of Toroa. His younger brother, Manaha, was a very different fellow.

Mr. Wakefield, with a view to outbidding Toroa, at once began to convert all his costly four-shilling hatchets into strings of our precious red money; and so greatly were these hatchets prized by us that old Waléambaila, who was over from his chiefdom in the Island of Lama to pick up a few "white" articles of trade, came stealthily smiling up the ladder one morning when Malagai and Toroa were safely away, specially to offer one hundred fathoms of the red money for one. The quietness of his manner before the transaction, together with

the bright twinkle of his eye after it, and the tender stroke and pat he gave the glittering tool before he slipped it into his capacious bag, showed that he thought he had made a capital bargain. Mr. Wakefield thought so too.

My brother, Diara, with a small party, soon arrived. Long and anxious were the consultations that I had with him about Noni.

Noni had been adopted by an aunt (or mother, as we say), named Pélua, a money-loving woman, and I suppose the fact of the matter was that this aunt was ready to sell her to the highest bidder. Could we not outbid Toroa? Percy's help.

Perhaps, with

One thing I was sure of, that if Noni loved anybody it was me, and not Iru; not altogether on my own account, perhaps, but because of the door of wealth which stood open behind me. That, I am certain, was my chief qualification in the eyes of the business-like aunt.

Yes, and there was another thing I was sure of, and that was that I loved her. Her graceful figure, her pretty face, so beautifully tattooed by Kopa, her neatness, her cheery voice, her merry laugh, her many housekeeping accomplishments, and the difficulty of getting her, all made me die to have her.

I was quite absorbed with this one idea. Everything and everybody else—my friends, and even my God-were put in the second place. It frightens me to think of the rebellion which raged at this time in my young, wilful heart. I sometimes think the devil must have been putting forth more than his usual power (as Mr. Carter said he would), in order to drive me to such a pitch of lawlessness as would make me lose all hope of pardon, and feel that the Christian religion had only enough hold on me left to spoil my happiness and unnerve my undertakings. Because, sooner than be troubled by having to keep up the outward and empty form of a dead friendship, which had already become poisoned with dislike,

we used to break the matter off by committing some unpardonable outrage against our friend, much preferring the certainty of club or spear to the bitter and weary doubleness of words.

And at the same time that I now speak of—I thank God that it is long past-dislike was exactly the feeling I had towards everybody and everything that was not in some way connected with Noni; not that I even then cared for the body or thing, but was ready to fling it away as soon as it had served my purpose. If I had been sure of obtaining Noni, I should have been the happiest person in the world, but the doubt distressed and fretted me, and made me miserable,

Mr. Wakefield was obliged to show his displeasure, and not only so, but his sorrow, at my conduct, and I thought that I would repay him and his "pets" with sulkiness; and so, instead of going up to the house to sit with him, I used to go and smoke with Valé.

As I would not eat what he had provided for me— -God forgive me for my base ingratitude, and for the pangs I caused his loving heart, which although I knew it not, was hungering and thirsting for a little warmth from mine; a father asking for bread and the son giving a stone !- -as I would not eat with that little Christian party who used to ask God to bless their food, and to thank Him for it—as I would not do this, I had to go to work every day with Diara on Malagai's farm, and I pretended that we had to start too early for prayers; while the terrible truth is that I did it to wound him. I suppose that you, dear Christian Reader, have never felt that kind of satanic satisfaction which consists in giving pain to one you love-a satisfaction which tears your own heart as well as the heart you love so jealously.

I do not think you can imagine the awful storms of fierce and conflicting passions which used to rage in our dark hearts, and which, strange to say, we used to nurse and feed, mistaking their consuming fury for godlike strength.