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THE STORY OF KOIVASI.

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"Then Koivasi is not God," continued Mr Wakefield; "for God was never born and will never die. HE IS. He is here now, keeping us alive, bidding the tide come up, and marking its limits. If He were not here, we and all we see would not be. He is like the air-everywhere."

My friend discovered further concerning Koivasi that she was a woman, which I never thought of telling him, because I took it for granted that everybody knew that; and Toroa favoured us with the following story about her, which I had to explain to Percy in private.

Toroa would not be out-talked or out-done by anyone, if he could help it.

The story was this:

"Koivasi went to bathe one day, and left her two grandchildren to keep house. When she got to the water she took off her skin, and threw it into the stream, which carried it down out of sight. Having finished bathing, she returned home. Her two grandchildren ran out to meet her, but instead of smiling at her and welcoming her as usual, they shut her out from their sight, exclaiming :

“O, you are not our grandmother! O, you are not our grandmother!'-over and over again.

"Hush! Be quiet!' cried Koivasi; but in vain. The children only wept the louder.

"At last she had nothing for it but to go back to the stream, saying, with something of despair in her voice:

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Why may not those who made the world live for ever?' "On coming to the river she found her skin caught in an overhanging branch, a long way down the stream. She took it and put it on again; and that is the reason we all die." So ends the story of Koivasi; as told by Toroa.

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"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.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ARRIVALS AND INTRODUCTIONS.

VALE was spoken to without delay, and the size and shape of Mr. Wakefield's house was decided upon. It was to be raised on piles seven feet from the ground, and to consist of one apartment about twenty feet long.

Next, the price was fixed. I only remember now that it seemed to me then like gaining the whole world, and a good deal more than my world contained; for there was something of all the good things from the East in it.

Percy then gave Valé the spade, telling him that it would be useful to dig holes for the piles with. But poor dear Valé was as utterly at a loss what to do with it as if it had been a butterknife, until we showed him how to use it; and even then his dismal cry, oft repeated, was:

"O, Both-of-you, my mind is perplexed and set awry!" Trying to dig after Mr. Wakefield, he sighed, like Malagai, for boots.

"Pomo, here, digs better than I can, and he has no bootsdig for him, Pomo," said my friend.

So I dug; and Valé, unconvinced and exceedingly troubled in mind, took the spade and began to wrap it up in banana leaves, as if it had been a handsome new embroidered club or spear. He then gave it to his wife, Rukomba, to be carefully stowed away as an Eastern curiosity.

Directly we got out onto the beach after leaving Valé, we saw a crowd of people at the landing-place, just on the other side of Malagai's village, and Talisi was limping along to meet us, crying out from a distance, to save his legs :

"They have all come-your people, Pomo. Come along here -qui-ick!"

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Yes, there were two of our Rota canoes, and there was Diara busily baling, while one or two lads were landing the gimés (sleeping mats), shields, spears, clubs, and sambeeree of the party, all of which articles were put under Malagai's roof.

The shrill voices of Siama and Talana, and the croak of my poor old father were plainly to be heard as we hurried towards them. We went at once to what Mr. Wakefield calls his first Pombuana home-Malagai's little coral peninsular, the only place where he could rest-and there I had the pleasure of making him known to my father and mother and brother. Noni had come too, and looked nicer than ever, so active, and careful and handy, and so beautifully tattooed— Kopa used to say that he never had surpassed the work on her left cheek—that I positively could not keep my eyes off her; except when she laid her's on me. I could then have sunk into the earth.

She was

Mr. Wakefield was enchanted with her graceful, modest manners, and pretty features, and noticed my confusion in answering his questions as to who she was and all about her.

Malagai's sharp ears overheard our conversation, and said, with a hearty laugh: "That's Pomo's wife-so it is said; but he has'nt enough money to buy her with. Eh, Marévo?"

"Where are we poor nobodies going to get money to buy wives with? Are we Chiefs? We!" exclaimed my father. "And why not, Cousin! You and I are Chiefs !"

"Oh, don't make fun of me, Malagai! We are always throwing money, throwing money, throwing money, we are; you and Toroa have got all our money between you—come ! give me a nut, man!"

Malagai, with a kit full of areca nuts, made Talana supply the visitors' wants, of course.

"And you really like this little girl?" said Mr. Wakefield to me in Marianusa.

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