n, and found it was the signal for a great company of howling armed
savages to rush down the hill on the other side of the bay and make
straight for the Mission House. We had not a moment to lose. To have
remained would have been certain death to us all, and also to Matthew, a
Teacher just arrived from Mr. Mathieson's Station. Though I am by
conviction a strong Calvinist, I am no Fatalist. I held on while one
gleam of hope remained. Escape for life was now the only path of duty. I
called the Teachers, locked the door, and made quickly for Nowar's
village. There was not a moment left to carry anything with us. In the
issue, Abraham and his wife and I lost all our earthly goods, and all
our clothing except what we had on. My Bible, the few translations which
I had made into Tannese, and a light pair of blankets I carried with me.

We durst not choose the usual path along the beach, for there our
enemies would have quickly overtaken us. We entered the bush in the hope
of getting away unobserved. But a cousin of Miaki, evidently secreted to
watch us, sprang from behind a breadfruit tree, and swinging his
tomahawk, aimed it at my brow with a fiendish look. Avoiding it I turned
upon him and said in a firm bold voice, "If you dare to strike me, my
Jehovah God will punish you. He is here to defend me now!"

The man, trembling, looked all round as if to see the God who was my
defender, and the tomahawk gradually lowered at his side. With my eye
fixed upon him, I gradually moved backwards in the track of the
Teachers, and God mercifully restrained him from following me.

On reaching Nowar's village unobserved, we found the people
terror-stricken, crying, rushing about in despair at such a host of
armed savages approaching. I urged them to ply their axes, cut down
trees, and blockade the path. For a little they wrought vigorously at
this; but when, so far as eye could reach, they saw the shore covered
with armed men rushing on towards their village, they were overwhelmed
with fear, they threw away their axes and weapons of war, they cast
themselves headlong on the ground, and they knocked themselves against
the trees as if to court death before it came. They cried, "Missi, it's
of no use! We will all be killed and eaten to-day! See what a host are
coming against us."

Mothers snatched up little children and ran to hide in the bush. Others
waded as far as they could into the sea with them, holding their heads
above the water. Th