dancing with excitement, women
saying "Goodbye" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in
all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world
beyond the ocean.

So two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they
went away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to
the sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the
plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of
prey, the Peruvian slavers.

* * * * *

Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor
outside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into
the little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The
women and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for
nearly all had gone.

"Where is this one? Where is the other?" cried Elikana, with sad face
as he looked around on them.

"Gone, gone," came the answer; "carried away by the man-stealing
ships."

Elikana turned to the white missionary who had come with him, to ask
what they could do.

"We will leave Joane and his wife here," replied Mr. Murray.

* * * * *

So a teacher from Samoa stayed there and taught the people, while
Elikana went to begin work in an island near by.

To-day a white lady missionary has gone to live in the Ellice Islands,
and the people are Christians, and no slave-trader can come to snatch
them away.

So there sailed over the waters of the wondrous isles first the boat
of sunrise and then the ship of darkness, and last of all the ship
of the Peace of God. The ship of darkness had seemed for a time to
conquer, but her day is now over; and to-day on that beach, as the
sunlight brims over the edge of the sea, and a new Lord's Day dawns,
you may hear the islanders sing their praise to the Light of the
World, Who shines upon them and keeps them safe.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: F[)a]-ee-v[)a] t[)a] l[=a].]

CHAPTER X

THE ARROWS OF SANTA CRUZ

_Bishop Patteson_

(Date of Incident--August 15th, 1864)

The brown crew of _The Southern Cross_ breathed freely again as the
anchor swung into place and the schooner began to nose her way out
into the open Pacific. They were hardened to dangers, but the Island
of Tawny Cannibals had strained their nerve, by its hourly perils
from club and flying arrow. The men were glad to see their ship's bows
plunge freely ag