because of a hasty word from their husbands; husbands because of real or imagined neglect by their wives)—had leaped out of the momentary darkness of life into the eternal darkness of death.

What was there left for me to live for? Loss, remorse, and shame. That same voice which had whispered: "Not without Noni !" now shook with cruel laughter, as it said: "You have lost her you have lost them-you have lost all! And for what? Fool! fool! fool! what would you not give to have it all undone?"

My attention was distracted by the appearance of Diara, breathless from pursuing me, for he knew well enough whither the path led which they told him I had taken.

"What are you doing here, younger brother?" he cried aloud. "Come home with me and don't be foolish. Shall we die for the sake of the dirt under our feet? Be of good cheer. I have good news for you. Look at my spear point, brother. It has drunk deep of blood to-day!"

"Iru?" I cried, with a pulse of joy in every vein.

"Sata!-don't be disappointed; I slew and hacked him as I would a snake."

"I wish it had been that other snake."

"He has gone back to Uri; Toroa will have them live at Sagaléa."

"And do you all tamely submit?" I asked. "Let me die rather than see, or hear, or think!" and a flood of choking, passionate tears poured forth, as the picture of my condition— my miserable, shameful, mocked condition-rose before me. And the possibility of their happiness !

"What can we do? But come home, and let us talk it over there," said kind Diara.

"Lead."

And so we walked home. But it was no longer home to me. It was filled with the absence of Noni. Everything reminded me of her and proclaimed that she was gone.

It was

merciful of God to cause them to go away so soon, though I did not think so at the time.

The silence and emptiness of what had been my home oppressed me beyond endurance. I doubted my father and mother, and believed that they had helped Pélua. She came in later in the evening. I would not have her near me, and I got up and walked out directly she came in.

"Where are you going, O son?" asked my mother.

"Nowhere," I answered.

"You wander about too much, my son; you neither eat nor sleep."

"All that I do is another's doing," I replied (meaning Pélua), as I went out.

I knew that Diara had gone away to a village at a little distance, for he had asked me to go with him; and I felt a strange comfort in being left alone.

The moon was in its Lulunda ni Lama stage, and shed enough light to enable me to see my way; but moon or no moon, we never stir abroad at night without a firebrand to show the leaves and twigs upon our path-our very word for path being hala-utu-a place swept clear of charms.

I walked listlessly along, allowing my feet to bear me whither they would. They had advanced some way along the path of the afternoon before I noticed whither I was going, so absorbed had I been in the rosy flame of my firebrand and its ruddy glow upon the path.

With the recognition of the path came that sickening, benumbing thought, with all its utter hopelessness, "Noni is gone for ever. Every hour of your life will bear you farther from her. Can you endure that?"

Flinging away my firebrand as far as my fevered arm could throw it, for I was no longer my own master, I cried: "No! better death than such a life as that. And what is death? It is but to follow this path, shut my eyes, and-leap!"

And there lay the hump of the cliff before me.

"I'll do it," thought I, "and bring them to their senses. They shall see that I am not to be befooled for nothing. They shall pity and cry for me when it will be too late. Good-bye, Percy Wakefield! Good-bye, Happy Island, with all the happy days! O, for one of the least happy of those days now! Gone, for ever! And why should I remain? There is no reason and I go."

I drew a long breath, tightened my loin cloth, for I had cast off my clothes, as Kiukilu had once done in a rage; who was now on his way to Happy Island! while I was on my way-whither? Without waiting to think, I began to run-straight for the edge of the cliff; but I stopped suddenly, being seized with a desire to look down, before I leaped.

The cliff had crumbled away and left an overhanging network of roots, which would catch me if I did not jump out clear of them. How tranquilly the moon quivered in the slowly heaving water at the cliff's foot! Sleep should be deep and dreamless in such a bed as that.

Having looked, I went back to secure a good run-heard a noise-only a falling leaf; but that was enough to shake me from head to foot: and then, as if pursued by Satan, I ran along the moonlit, shadow-latticed path.

Crash!

Was this death? Was it the smashing out of light and life upon the rocks below? What would be the next awful scene? If I opened my eyes, should I find myself at the judgment seat of God? Would His voice be ringing in my ears in another moment ?

I was indeed lying upon the rocks; but at the top of the cliff, and not at the bottom. My face and forehead were battered by a terrible blow that had struck fire in my eyes and stunned me for the moment. I was afraid to stir at first, for fear of waking up in some terrible presence-perhaps in

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Hell-or of feeling some aggravation of the pain which was then beginning to throb and beat all through my head.

When at last I did venture slowly to arise upon my hands and knees, I found that my instep had been caught by a root which my bloodshot eyes had mistaken for a shadow, and that thus I had been felled to the ground. I rose cautiously to my feet, and before my reeling head brought me to the earth again, I cried aloud to Heaven, the forest, and the sea: "It was Thy hand, O my Father, which dealt that loving blow in my young face-set to do wickedly."

This settled the matter. I was not to die. Henceforth I felt God near me once more. Satan would have destroyed me; but God dashed me to the ground, and brought me face to face with reason and with that hard rock.

"By my Forbidden Food! what a face!" said my mother next morning, when I appeared about daylight, "what have you been doing, boy?"

"I fell down."

"You are a regular White man, my Son, as I have often told you."

"Yes I had lost my eyes-but now, blind as I am, I see!" "Your words are altogether too entangled for me, Pomo. Here are cool leaves to bandage your wounds. And stay at home, my son; night is for the owls and bats."

"There is no more home for me in Pombuana." "There are more maids than one in the land." "Yes and there is one man too many in it at present." Saying this, I went out, taking the leaves, to bathe at the stream in the valley-Percy's stream, murmuring in his ab

sence.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A VERY INFERIOR RACE.

NOT many days after the events I have related in the last chapter, there was a shout of a vessel. Could it be the Aurora come back again? What joy if it were! Having lost all I deserted them for, I would graciously have condescended to rejoin my ill-treated friends. But no such convenient oppor

tunity was afforded me. It was a strange vessel.

Passing us by, she made for the great Bay of Lalo, whose beauties had so delighted Mr. Wakefield. Seeing this, Diara and I, and a large party started off for Matanga, which was among the hills.

She had not anchored, but was drifting along with her sails. aback, looking as though she wanted to communicate with us. A host of canoes of course flew off to her, among which was one containing Diara and me and three others. We had taken off some articles to sell, but they wouldn't trade; and there was a bamboo railing above the bulwark to keep any one from going on board. The white faces which looked down at us were the sickliest I had ever seen, and Diara said to me :

"These are no true white men. They are of a different white from Bishop, and all our friends. What have they come after, Pomo, and why won't they trade. They are no good."

"I think they are men-stealers," said I, feeling no disinclination to be stolen, if such was to be my fate; but I added at the same time, "Don't let us go too near."

"So we paddled up under her stern, where we could see without being seen; though we were in danger of being swamped by the playful gambols of the rudder, to whose chains we held on.