ARTHUR ROGANT'S LETTER.

241

You must come back
Oh, we did not take

had been waiting in vain, longing to hear of you, where you had got to, and whether you were well You must not be sick any more. You must not go to England. to us who are fatherless without you. care of you in the old bad days; but only come back and you shall never work nor pull the boat again What are we for but to help you! Come back and let us undo what we have done. Have you found Pomo? Bring him back too. Pomo! Can it be that he is dead?

Poor

“How glad I was when I saw your hand upon the letter! With what joy I read it! I am nowhere and nothing now you are gone. My heart is like a desert, my sadness overflows; for you and I are parted. Only when I shall see your face again shall I be happy. It is as if Dolo and Roé had just died afresh! You must not think of never coming back again. If you are sick, what are we for but to take care of you as you have taken care of us.

66 When you went it was as if my own self had gone away! Forget you? Whither could I go? What could become of me? What could I be about, so that I could cease to remember you? If I die, then first shall I cease to think of you; but if I live, then only when my eyes meet yours again.

"How is it that I am here this day? Because you brought me when I was a child. How is it that I know anything? Because you taught me. How is it that I am well and strong and big? Because you nursed and fed me, and I therefore place you in my heart before my own mother and father, with whom I lived when I was little; but with you have I lived always.

"And so it is that I am sad and desolate exceedingly, now that you are gone. But I am to blame in this matter, dear friend. While you were with me I leaned too much upon you, and not until you went away did I seek for some one to help me, and there was no one; and I feel forsaken, and I cry when

R

I see your vacant place, for there is no one who can soon stand up to fill it.

“No one has come to take your place in this room. Here sit I and write and learn and think of you. (Mr.) Kahtah tells me I must take your place. I am not fit nor worthy; but it is well. If God has called me, He will help me, for it is His work.

“Ah, friend, it is hard for me. I cry, too, over your work at Pombuana. It will no longer grow; perhaps will fade and die, yet I try to say-it is well. Let it be that you are merely resting a while, and that I am waiting for you here. Let us think of the meeting-place above, in the presence of the Lord of you and me.

“This is the end, dear friend. I can write no more, for all my words are done, says your little child,

"ARTHUR ROGANI."

II.

"TANASEMBE, URI, POMBUANA, July.

"I BEG of you, dear Father, to come back. Malagai is awfully angry with all the 'boys of the vessel,' and says he will murder them, if you don't come back. He is enraged on your account. And all his wives are weeping for their Son, and so is Valé; and, ‘where is Waykay? and where is Pomo?' is what they are say-say-saying all day long.

"You are the one who shall be here, say they; and will have no one in your stead. Be quick, and come back once more, and then Malagai will be in a good humour again, and Sandy and everything will go on well. Send a vessel hither and I will get on board it, and sail to where you are. I want to look into your eyes, Waykay. It was you who did all for me before; and now I am an orphan. Here I await you in the house of you and me, at Tanasémbé.

A PAYING INSTITUTION.

243

"Waykay feeloo Pilé (little Wakefield) is already big. Good above measure is this your Namesake! She never misses going into the school-house, doesn't this little girl.

“But as for us all, we are like a litter of little pigs whose mother has just died.

Come back then, says your Son,

CURWEN KIUKILU.”

Waykayfeeloo Pilé " (Wakefield the Less) was none other than the youngest daughter of Valé and Rukomba, whom Mr. Wakefield compared to an Infant Purgatory, since it was only by constantly propitiating the parents through the child that he could obtain relief from the torments of her all-pervading shrieks and from her frequent and sticky embraces. My friend persists that Rukomba used to pinch Waykayfeeloo Pilé when her tobacco was low, as always about that time the neighbourhood became uninhabitable owing to her blood-thirsty screams, which invariably died away amid slaps and sobs when that soothing weed was administered, not to the child but to the mother. I need hardly tell you that before long every village had its "Waykayfeeloo Pilé" (sometimes a baby boy, sometimes a girl), whose personal wants were in number and capacity

those of an adult multitude.

CHAPTER LI.

GOD DISPOSES.

THE consecration of Mr. Carter as Bishop is the next most

important event I have to

tell you of.

We were all present, and Lolomaran acted the part of Church Eagle, in bearing the Book out of which the Service

was read.

The singing was beautiful by boys in white, and the sermon preached by Mr. Wakefield seemed especially spoken to me, it had so much about the Prodigal Son in it. The love which that parable teaches I had experienced in my own person; and to my great and inexpressible comfort I felt that the Far Country was farther off than ever, below the horizon of the past, and that I was once more in my Father's house-his son that had been dead and was alive again, that had been lost and was found, fully persuaded by long and bitter experience that in the highest and holiest sense, "There is no place like

Home."

Bishop Carter confirmed my companions on the next Sunday, and I found myself rejoicing in their advancement, as if it had been my own, which was quite unlike the behaviour of my old self, who had left little more than his ugly shadow behind him; thanks be to God!

After these two great ends had been accomplished, it was decided to my satisfaction-everything seemed to come right all at once that the Aurora should depart directly for Happy Island, leaving Percy and me behind in Sydney, for the two purposes of re-establishing my friend's health, and of catching the blackbird catchers.

It was the end of November, and we had the summer before us, during which months it was too hot and too stormy for the well-being either of white ships or of white men in our neighbourhood. Our time passed pleasantly and profitably in every respect. Percy got quite well and strong again, at least he said he was; but although he certainly did look ruddy and cheerful, yet it seemed to me that he was not as strong as he was before. I, for my part, got on very well with my studies in English, music, history, geography, and not so well with my arithmetic.

Living with and meeting no one but gentlemen and ladies soon smoothed out the roughness which had encroached upon

ON THE TRACK OF THE DOCTOR.

245

my manners, and the coarseness which had corrupted my speech-Percy being always on the look out for Cookeyisms or Galleycisms, as he called them; and aiming always and in all things at my perfection.

It was already March when we ascertained that a vessel was fitting out under Dr. Gray's control, for a cruise among the islands to get tortoise-shell and engage in general trade. During our stay the very man-of-war that overhauled us came into port. We went on board and laid our whole case before the Captain, and I had the pleasure and amusement of meeting the Lieutenant whose voice I had already heard in less comfortable circumstances.

Only think of our mortification when we learned that the Doctor had sailed for "Guam" one stormy night, and had left us nothing but the echo of his laugh at having outwitted us. But he was not allowed to have all the laugh on his side; for in answer to an advertisement, which we had put in all the newspapers for several weeks, my old friend Nicholson appeared one afternoon, and said that he would have quitted the savage Doctor's service long ago but that he owed him money, and that just before the Doctor sailed he had had a row with him, and that he had been kicked ashore, and told to go and get his money at a certain place, which he would not mention. Hot from this outrage did Nicholson arrive, declaring that the Doctor had on board some special trade for Pombuana and Surakana to decoy the men on board with. He also told us that Darken and the Doctor had quarrelled, and that Darken had got a small vessel of his own. But he broke off so often to admire me in my new and splendid condition, that he had to be constantly stopped and brought back to his subject.

The arrival, a day after, of the Commodore seemed most providential. He was a just and humane man, who believed that we had even souls as well as bodies that would be none the worse for being saved.