e will manage everything
for Missi."

They were in distress when he refused; and poor old Nowar tried another
tack. Suspecting that my clear wife was afraid of them, he got us on
shore to see his extensive plantations. Turning eagerly to her, he said,
leaving me to interpret, "Plenty of food! While I have a yam or a
banana, you shall not want."

She answered, "I fear not any lack of food."

Pointing to his warriors, he cried, "We are many! We are strong! We can
always protect you."

"I am not afraid," she calmly replied.

He then led us to that chestnut tree, in the branches of which I had sat
during a lonely and memorable night, when all hope had perished of any
earthly deliverance, and said to her with a manifest touch of genuine
emotion, "The God who protected Missi there will always protect you."

She told him that she had no fear of that kind, but explained to him
that we must for the present go to Aniwa, but would return to Tanna, if
the Lord opened up our way. Nowar, Arkurat, and the rest, seemed to be
genuinely grieved, and it touched my soul to the quick.

A beautiful incident was the outcome, as we learned only in long after
years. There was at that time an Aniwan Chief on Tanna, visiting
friends. He was one of their great Sacred Men. He and his people had
been promised a passage home in the _Dayspring_, with their canoes in
tow. When old Nowar saw that he could not keep us with himself, he went
to this Aniwan Chief, and took the white shells, the insignia of
Chieftainship, from his own arm, and bound them on the Sacred Man,
saying, "By these you promise to protect my Missi and his wife and child
on Aniwa. Let no evil befall them; or, by this pledge, I and my people
will revenge it."

In a future crisis, this probably saved our lives, as shall be
afterwards related. After all, a bit of the Christ-Spirit had found its
way into that old cannibal's soul! And the same Christ-Spirit in me
yearned more strongly still, and made it a positive pain to pass on to
another Island, and leave him in that dim-groping twilight of the soul.

CHAPTER LVIII.
OUR NEW HOME ON ANIWA.

ANIWA became my Mission Home in November, 1866; and for the next fifteen
years it was the heart and center of my personal labors in the Heathen
World. Since 1881, alas! my too frequent deputation pilgrimages among
Churches in Great Britain and in the Colonies have rendered my visits to
Aniwa but few and far between. God never guided m