A HORRIBLE SIGHT.

95

again at Uri-to pay tribute to strangers, and to return empty to his own people."

"You have spoken the Bishop's own words, Salatambu. He has bidden me go about, and forbidden me to stay altogether at Uri. He wishes you all to have a fair share of Sambeeree; and have I not now come to see you, in your own place?—ah, there is my boy, Kaukaru !"

"Your boy who comes back empty! Your boy, and ours no longer. He cares no more for us, his mother or me; it is all Waykayfeeloo, Waykayfeeloo, Waykayfeeloo, Waykayfeeloo, with him now."

"Where is his mother?" asked Mr. Wakefield.

"Let us go inshore and see her."

So they got up and walked along the sand, till they came to the mouth of the path down which Salatambu had advanced. They then turned their backs on the sea, and were immediately enveloped in the pleasant gloom of the forest. Salatambu went first, and Percy followed with his arm round Kaukaru's neck.

Presently Salatambu paused, and, half turning round, called Percy's attention to something of interest at the side of the path, which had then opened into a well-swept clearing, where was a Kiala.

He beheld eight dead faces, with their solemn eyelids, frowning in silent judgment upon their destroyer.

"Why do you show me this abominable sight?" asked Percy, disgusted. "You will have to meet those men in the other world. Don't think that God will let you destroy His creatures with impunity. He has His tambus, as well as you have yours. He has tambued the killing of men, which Tambu you, and Malagai, and Toroa have constantly desecrated "Sala-Tambu means to desecrate a Tambu, so here was a grim play upon words" and for which He will daé you.”

"Your Abomination is our warrior with some impatience.

Daily Bread!" said the burly "Hagé-nda! let us go in !"

Malagai's readiness to permit Mr. Wakefield to visit Bokona was accounted for next morning by the fine fat pig which Salatambu sent to his brother for allowing his white man to come and be seen.

Most unfortunately Mr. Wakefield awoke very ill on the morrow of his visit, and for four days and four nights did he roll restlessly over his bamboo floor (which was also his bed), in vain search for a cool spot. Malagai said that a Bokona demon had bitten him, and strongly advised him to stay at home for the future. "He was as kind as any woman could be, so were they all," writes the grateful sufferer. When he was in a dead sleep, Malagai called in Haharo to exorcise him; and it was firmly believed throughout Pombuana, when the familiar figure was seen about again, that the wizard had saved his life; which, as my dear friend says, was uncommonly provoking.

CHAPTER XXII.

WAITING.

MR. WAKEFIELD found the latter part of his three months' stay in Pombuana full of weakness and weariness. Malagai and all the people grew fidgety and impatient for the vessel's return; in other words, for Sambeeree. The great Chief inquired what it was the Bishop was saying, every time it thundered, and told Mr. Wakefield whenever he sneezed, that his absent friends were speaking about him.

In order to pass time and take the place of exhausted smalltalk, my friend persuaded Malagai to learn his letters. The elderly student kept two reading sheets always ready, one in the thatch of Percy's room, and the other in Talana's basket, down at Tanasémbé, so as to be able to refer to it at a moment's notice.

DIARA MAKES HIMSELF AT HOME.

97

He was often to be seen, says his tutor, at eventide, sitting on his coral rampart with his back against a tree, and the soles of his august feet presented to the Lama hills, smoking and reading his letter-sheet, like a middle-aged gentleman reading his Times.

A visit from Diara, Siama, and party, was to my weary friend, the next best thing to the arrival of the Aurora.

My brother, Diara, with a hop, skip, and jump up the ladder, deposited himself, baggage and all, without ceremony, in Mr. Wakefield's house. Percy says he felt both the compliment and the inconvenience of such a visit.

Much of the baggage consisted of indifferently preserved fish, large twists of our tobacco, and highly turmericked mats, filling the small dwelling with an odour, which the host compares to a combination of China and Billingsgate-kept a little too long.

At night, Diara fidgetted in and out, smoked, chewed betel, and chatted to Percy by turns.

But he bore all with perfect good grace, because Diara was my brother, and because Diara's good-will towards himself, might prove his good-will towards the Gospel.

He proposed that they should return together to Rota. Mr Wakefield assented with delight, but Malagai publicly forbade him to go, lest he should die, or be ill as on his visit to Bokona.

Mr. Wakefield also publicly declared his intention to go, and went. He saw Noni, and was more than ever charmed with her, making up his mind to try and take her away to Happy Island next year, when I should be with him. Alas! alas! It is well that we do not know what is before us.

He returned quickly from Rota, because the Aurora was already due; but day after day the sun set upon a sail-less sea. Then he begun to fret terribly, growing weaker and weaker; for his provisions were all consumed, and he could not live

H

upon our food.

His candles, too, were done; and he had to lie down at sunset, about six o'clock.

But God had something for him to do before he went away; therefore the vessel came not.

Rogani had managed to get over to see his father, Roé, while Mr. Wakefield had been at Rota. He did not come back for two days after my friend's return; and then his expressive face said there was something wrong.

When they were alone in the evening, Rogani explained to Mr. Wakefield the reason of his long absence, but in so low a whisper, that the listener had to draw up the water-keg (the top of which was his stool), close to the table where Rogani sat, with his long unread book spread open before him; to be plunged into in case of interruption.

The day after Percy had left for Matambala, a secret message had been sent to Rogani, that his father was very ill, and was being brought from Halavo by easy stages to a village named Matapolo, not very far inland; but that no one must know it, or the old man might be killed by those who sought his life. So Rogani had slipped off during a thunderstorm and in torrents of rain, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers, and had got undiscovered to the hut where his father was lying; with Vili and Nola and Koéndéré, his two brothers and niece, in attendance upon him.

"And now, dear friend," said he earnestly to Mr. Wakefield, "will you come up and tell him about JESUS, and about this Way; I tried to, but he will heed better if you speak—and they asked me all sorts of questions that I couldn't answer." "How far is it?"

"About as far as from Stevény" (S. Stephen's) "to Townah;" so we dignified the Whaling Station at Happy Island; "but the road is different."

It was indeed; over hill and down gully. They had purposely chosen an out of the way place.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

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"I will go," answered Percy, no matter how far it is, or how bad the road. Now I know why the Aurora has delayed her coming. You tell me what to do, Rogani, and I will try to do it. When shall we go?"

"They must not know of our going."

"How are we to hide it?"

"I will go first-this evening; and our friend Haharo will guide you in the morning, early, before the people wake." "Why cannot we go together?"

"It would bring all the world at our heels."

So Rogani, under pretence of going only as far as Taétavé, crossed that stream, and took one of the hill-tracks, which led by a round about way to Matapolo, where he would arrive after dark.

Haharo, in bewitching Dolo, had simply obeyed orders, and was now anxious to befriend his unfortunate family. He was a man of secrecy, and, more than that, of great fidelity, and what you would call a religious man, believing in himself most thoroughly, and deceiving himself quite as much as he did anybody else. He came noiselessly in that same evening, and sat down without a word in the dark shadow of the table cast by Percy's candle-the last, which he had jealously guarded against the multitude of unaccountable draughts that threatened its constitution (already weakened by a hot climate) with a galloping consumption.

Mr. Wakefield raised his eyes from the page of his diary, which he was writing up, and which now lies open before me, and became aware of the darkening of the dark shadow. "Oh! is it you?" he exclaimed.

"I."

"Here is a pipe and a bit of tobacco for you, Haharo. You befriend my boy, and I'll befriend you."

Haharo put the gifts into his betel-bag, which he had placed on the bamboo floor, and in which he was rummaging for his