What a wonderful mixture of love and hate was I myself then! There was hate in my love, and love in my hate; but above all the burning confusion I was always conscious of a steady, counselling Voice quietly, but conclusively, showing me the wrongness of my state, and besides this, I felt there was a Power checking me and closing up opportunities of wickedness; snatching, as it were, the knife from my selfdestroying hand. I feel very sure that if it had not been for this controlling Power I should have gone wrong beyond repair.

And you must recollect that it had been proposed that I should be Confirmed on my return to Happy Island! But that date was farther off than I imagined.

It was just at this time that Mr. Wakefield set me all afire by telling me that at the next break in the Trade Wind we should go to Rota-to buy Noni !

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BY WATER.

It was after Evening Prayer in Percy's little house. Rogani, Kiukilu, Kui, and I were present. Mr. Wakefield had been rummaging a great deal in bags and boxes, sorting some things and packing up others, all the afternoon.

Sitting down on a box to rest, and drawing a long breath, he said to Arthur and me:

"You-two go and call Valé, and we will launch the boat. To-morrow we are going on a voyage. That is if you-two consent to go."

"Where are you going?" we inquired.

"First to Lalo, to see Riroto's people, and then to Rotato-see Pomo's people. How will that do?"

AN INTERESTING EXPEDITION.

121

"Is it safe?" I asked. 66 Seeing our little boat alone upon the sea, may not the people along the coast say, 'There is the Uri boat and the Uri white man; come, let us attack it?' and Lalo-is it safe for you there? These men are angry about Riroto's death."

"Come here to me, Percy," was the only answer to all my questions.

I went up to him. He took me by the arm and whispered in my ear these tingling words:

"Off with us, and let us launch the boat ready for to-morrow!" Not a word more of objection from me. All my gloominess and ill-humour seemed to have fled like mists before the sun. I felt friendly towards everybody, and thought that the evil had vanished from my heart forever. Thus do we deceive ourselves. I was mightily mistaken in imagining that I could thus easily escape from reaping what I had sown, and that God would submit to be thus mocked. Every malicious thought and every unkind act, and all my devilish humours should be passed in review before me and be accounted for one by one. An unflattering mirror was yet to be thrust by an uncompromising hand before my very face, and the loathsome object therein reflected, and from which I would fain turn away my eyes, was to be made known to me as Myself. Oh no! Not thus can man mock God-sow evil for others and then reap nothing but good for himself; nevertheless, the bitter harvest will be the wholesomest meal he ever ate.

I forthwith became the most light-hearted of the party. I forgot the past; but unluckily the Past remembered me.

We launched the boat, or rather carried it on our shoulders, canoe-fashion, which two of us could do, if necessary, it was so small and light-carried it down to high water mark, ready to start on the top of high water next morning.

Mr. Wakefield was up at four o'clock and had hot coffee ready before he awoke us heavy sleepers. After our coffee we had very short prayers by lantern light, and having stowed our things in the boat, left Uri in peace and quietness, on the top of high tide, when the ragged reef was well covered, at five minutes to six by Percy's small brass clock, which travelled with us.

The trade wind was still asleep, the day just breaking, and the sea like quicksilver. We reached Lévuna at a little past eight, which was doing it quietly. There was a short sea on round the rocky point, on the other side of the passage, which stopped the boat's way, and furnished a foretaste of what we might expect when the trade blew up and we lost our lee. We slept there that night. The people were rude and annoying; "nearly as great a nuisance as the flies;" but Mr. Wakefield's object was to show that he was no exclusive Uri man, but open and friendly to all Pombuana.

Kui caused quite a sensation here. As the large party were sheltering in a shed for the night, this stupid but most faithful fellow brought out his ancient reading book, which looked less like paper than tobacco, and had an equally beneficial effect upon Kui's intellect. He had learned the whole contents of the book by heart, but could not read a single word of it. Nevertheless, he used to spread it out before him-often upside down-and then proceed to hum and chant and drone away, turning over now and then out of respect for the usages of the reading world; not that he could see any practical use in it.

The public, however, felt that Kui must be one of the most learned persons they had ever seen, for when, owing to the firelight failing, Mr. Wakefield said he could not read any more, Kui went on just as briskly as ever.

Afterwards, the white visitor told them the story of the Creation; and here Kui increased the confusion of their minds by explaining that Mr. Wakefield had been present, and that

KUI DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.

123

he knew Adam, or Dam, as he more briefly called him—“A' being merely a personal prefix with us. I find that my white friend has made the same mistake from his side, for he has written down Vale's wife's name as Arukomba, instead of Rukomba. Kui had reasoned that the Adam, spoken of by Percy as the first man, and Adam Johnson, one of the whalers at Happy Island (familiarly called Adam, and profusely liberal with his tobacco), must be one and the same person.

The next night was spent on the shore of Téga Bay, below the village belonging to Tila. Here we discovered a fine anchorage, as also did some others later-much to their disadvantage.

Tila's people were shy but friendly. Great pours of rain were sent that night to lay the surf at the most dangerous and difficult point of our voyage, a ruined rocky headland battered to pieces by the perpetual bombardment of the open sea; where two tall pillars of rock still stand close together on the ocean's brink like twin monuments, sacred (and solitary) to the memory of the demolished land. It is the "Land's End" of Pombuana.

Here are whirlpools, eddies, tossing tides, and swelling surges ever rushing upon the jagged edges and bristling dagger points of the stabbing rocks, careless of what other destruction they may deal. Here, the great Haharo had prophesied to Malagai concerning us bold navigators, that we should cease to go, if not cease to be. Here is the torn End and Finis of earthquakeriven, tide-worn Pombuana. Here, too, is the meeting place of East and West, where they exchange their names in true Pombuana fashion; for at this point the traveller eastwardbound turns west, and westward-bound goes east; insomuch, that an Uri man is soon detected hereabouts by his calling West East and East West.

But though we were swept about by whirling eddies, and tossed by boiling tide-rips, there was but little heavy break,

and to our great satisfaction we got safely into calm water, and within sight of Lalo, smiling at us from the other side of its wide and deep and islet-dotted bay.

CHAPTER XXIX.

GOOD OUT OF EVIL.

It was still quite early in the day, so instead of striking straight across the bay we turned in and wound our way among the islets, which are piled with glossy trees and wreathed with white seabirds. We landed on the level beach, beneath a mighty cliff of black and rugged rock, clasped by frail creepers and embosomed in tender shrubs and trees, as though age and their gentle company had softened all its natural hardness. Percy, as usual, was perfectly enchanted with the variety of beauty here displayed. Had Pombuana been ugly or commonplace, I doubt if he could have undergone the great fatigue, of which its remarkable lovliness and endless change of form and scene and colour rendered him less sensible.

Having bathed and eaten in quiet, for an islet hid us from the Lalo beach, we crossed over and drew up our boat opposite the barricade defending the entrance to the village.

The three brothers were at hand to meet us; also Boténa, the chief of Lalo.

Aroha, Riroto's own father, invited Mr. Wakefield to stay with him, while we had to take up our quarters in Boténa's beautiful Kiala, nearly as large as the Uri one, and far more freely ornamented. But we spent most of our time in Aroha's house, nevertheless.

Percy was touched by the quiet kindness of these bereaved people. They took him and showed him Riroto's own little gem of a house, built inside of the Kiala. My friend compares