That same afternoon before the washing was over, Malagai re-appeared in a very excited state, saying in a feverish whisper:

"Have you heard what Salatambu has done? Fool that he is, to spoil the good behaviour" (anxiously kept up during our visit !), "he does not pay attention to your word, as we do; he has been taking heads."

"I have not spoken to him yet; but I must go to Bokona, as soon as possible, and see him. We must not blame him yet for doing what you Uri people have done over and over again."

"But that is all past. We have adopted your teaching. It is not the same as in the old days-O, no! Look at the skulls at Tanasémbé; are they not scattered, mouldy, broken? and say if I have not heeded your words? Once they were my chief care; now they are forsaken. Why, in old days, I shed blood every day, but now Pombuana is like Happy Island!" "There is some truth in what you say."

Waykay," he continued more earnestly, "when I was a young man, I said to myself, I'll get one thousand heads, and then I shall be old and tired, and will rest. But when I got but five hundred of the thousand, then came Bishop and you, telling me to lay down spear and club and shield. I listened to your voice, and turned old woman, as you see me to-day. Look here, though, Waykay, I have the old action still!" And he stooped behind his shield, rolled his eyes and wielded his club in a manner sufficiently ferocious, and which, my friend says, would have been most terrific, had he been in earnest.

"Well," said Percy, "the time will come, when you will be glad that you got only five hundred heads; sorry that you took so many. For whose are these men whom you have killed? Yours? No! they are God's, and He will dać (demand payment-dun) you for them. He placed them in the world, and what right have you to hurry them out of it into His presence before He calls them?"

"What then becomes of my glory?"

66

TRUE GLORY AND FALSE.

Glory! your idea of glory is a wrong one.

91

Wait till you

are sick and old, and where's your glory? A child can knock you on the head then, and thousands will rejoice; besides, if glory consists in the strong bullying and murdering the weak, you must not forget that there are others stronger than you— we for example."

"But you are so kind."

"Yes, you may be thankful that our ideas of glory are not yours, or we should come round with a man-of-war, burning your villages and collecting your heads."

Men-of-war had visited Happy Island, and had practised there with their big guns. Their fame had reached the ears of Malagai.

"But Manawa learnt all this when he was little, and it has come upon me now that I am old."

66

Quite so. But if you have indeed given up your former life of bloodshed, there is Baptism to wash away your sins, and those men's deaths will not be remembered against you, if you truly repent."

"And what is Manawa's glory?"

"To protect the weak against the strong bully; to prevent lawless white men coming here to molest you, and to prevent you from making wanton attacks on your weaker neighbours. True glory consists in saving life, not in destroying it. And surely you Pombuana people are few enough already, without killing yourselves off any more."

"There you are right."

"It is far more glorious to overcome men with kindness, to love our enemies, and to return good for evil, as God has commanded us to do."

"By my Forbidden Food, but that is hard!"

"Hard-and therefore worth doing; worthy of you to-day! For you are Chief here not by chance. It is God who has placed you over this people, and He has sent me to tell you

His will, in order that you may rule this people in the right way. It is for you to lead. You are now like a canoe on the beach, when the tide is rising; it will either float you or swamp you. God's religion is that tide, and it is coming in here, in Pombuana, and you cannot stop it. You will either rise with it to a higher level, or be swept away make room for another. It will be either Life or Death to you. God speaks to you by my mouth. It is for you to decide whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear."

to

"Don't scold me-go and scold your friend, Salatambu, who has spoilt the good behaviour, and see if he will hear your words as we do."

"Will you go too?"

"I decline; but your friend Toroa is going in three days, and you can get in with him."

Percy sought the reason why Malagai favoured his visit to Bokona, which he certainly did, as strongly as he opposed his going to Matambala.

CHAPTER XXI.

A HEAD-HUNTER AT HOME.

It was arranged that Mr. Wakefield should visit Bokona, and that he should travel with Toroa in Béuko.

It was a beautiful bright morning, about nine o'clock, Percy thinks, when he stept carefully upon the middle of the bottom plank of Toroa's state canoe. Toroa himself bowed and smiled and skipped about in ceaseless animation. His tongue and his legs seemed to be running a race. This was, of course, before he stept into beautiful Béuko, where there was no room for antics; for our canoes had no outriggers.

At last the sharp shallows of Salatambu's landing-place threatened the fragile craft, and Toroa vociferated his orders

HONOUR AMONG HEAD-HUNTERS.

93

to jump out. It would have been like bodily pain to Mr. Wakefield to see that delicate beautiful thing wounded by the jagged coral, and he stept out, as soon as the water was kneedeep, and waded ashore, in spite of Toroa telling him to sit still and be dragged up. These little touches of sympathy won the hearts of these savage men. They did not mind being spoken sternly to by one of whose goodwill they were assured. We consider it an honour to be scolded by a Chief.

After a long sit on the beach, under magnificent shade, Percy became conscious of a tall and upright figure, slowly and solemnly proceeding out of the forest at his side. The long light hair fell down on the broad black shoulders, like, Percy says, the mane of a German Professor. A beautiful shield glittering with mother-of-pearl, and gay with tufts of feathers and red fringe, swung from one shoulder, and a long spear with horrid shin-bone-head was balanced on the other. There was grace and dignity in every movement. Never quickening its pace, this figure turned towards Percy when it reached the end of the path, down which it had come on to the beach, and silently approached the log on which Percy sat, holding its head high, and looking straight before it.

Arrived at the log, it disarmed itself, and sat down about a yard from Percy, but without breaking silence. At last the visitor did so by saying:

"I am glad to tread your land for the first time "—then after a little pause he added—“ although I don't feel quite comfortable about my head; which, being a white man's, might be a valuable addition to your collection."

"We do not take the heads of our friends," gravely replied the figure, and relapsed into silence.

"What had those men done to you that you should kill them?" asked the visitor.

66

They had done nothing. I did not want them. I wanted their heads for my new Kiala-they're a vile lot."

Percy then delivered a lecture, something in the same strain as that addressed to Malagai.

"And so the Uri have heeded your words, have they?” said Salatambu, sarcastically.

"Time will show. It is easy to say-but difficult to perform."

66

And so you have come to talk to me.'

"Yes; Malagai abused the Bokona people for taking heads, and not heeding the Bishop's teaching; so I said to him :— but they have not heard-how can they heed?" "They're out-and-out cheats, are the Uri! Malagai told me to go and take those heads. to have one?"

66

Your friend Is he not going

Well," said Percy, "you will have to stop this work. In old days you knew no better, but now a Greater Chief than any here, has sent His messenger to tell you to give it up—it is His tambu."

66

Everywhere. He fills the universe like Air and Light." "And whom has He sent that I may hear His voice?" "Bishop and myself."

"Let the vaka come here and buy and sell, and we will heed your words. The Uri get everything, and we get nothing; and they don't heed-they lie! Let the vaka float off just there." -Here, Percy says, a vision arose in his mind of Captain Dermott tearing his hair, and raving in the wildest of brogues, as he surveyed the bristling and foaming shallows pointed out, without emotion, by Salatambu, as a comfortable berth for the Aurora." Let her lie off there for two days, and then we shall know you; but I will not go all the way to Uri to be shouldered out of the way by them; so if you want any of my boys, you must come and fetch them; and never put Kaukaru ashore