pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was
pursuing him. The man was stunned. Turning again, Cunningham leapt
safely into the boat.

Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into
the sea. Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply
into the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water.

Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at
Williams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with
uplifted club. The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat
him with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples
of the beach ran red with his blood.

The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to
the savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was
dead--the first martyr of Erromanga.

* * * * *

When _The Camden_ sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to
meet her. A brown Samoan guided the first canoe.

"Missi William," he shouted.

"He is dead," came the answer.

The man stood as though stunned. He dropped his paddle; he drooped his
head, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander
and ran down his cheeks.

The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all
directions came the natives crying in multitudes:

"Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!)

And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams,
cried:

"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his
face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good
word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they
did! How great a man they have destroyed!"

John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown
men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach
of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveille to our
slumbering camps:

"The daybreak call,
Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift
to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.]

[Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].]

[Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.]

CHAPTER VIII

KAPIOLANI, THE HEROINE OF HAWAII

_Kapiolani_

(Date of Incident, 1824)

"Pele[24] the all-terrible, the fire goddess, will hurl her thunder
and her stones, and will slay you," cried the angry priests of
Hawaii.[25] "You