his four wives along with him. Ra
Vatu had had economic and ethical objections to monogamy. Besides, the
missionary's hair-splitting objection had offended him; and, to prove
that he was a free agent and a man of honor, he had swung his huge war
club over Starhurst's head. Starhurst had escaped by rushing in under
the club and holding on to him until help arrived. But all that was now
forgiven and forgotten. Ra Vatu was coming into the church, not merely
as a converted heathen, but as a converted polygamist as well. He was
only waiting, he assured Starhurst, until his oldest wife, who was very
sick, should die.

John Starhurst journeyed up the sluggish Rewa in one of Ra Vatu's
canoes. This canoe was to carry him for two days, when, the head of
navigation reached, it would return. Far in the distance, lifted
into the sky, could be seen the great smoky mountains that marked the
backbone of the Great Land. All day John Starhurst gazed at them with
eager yearning.

Sometimes he prayed silently. At other times he was joined in prayer by
Narau, a native teacher, who for seven years had been Lotu, ever since
the day he had been saved from the hot oven by Dr. James Ellery Brown
at the trifling expense of one hundred sticks of tobacco, two cotton
blankets, and a large bottle of painkiller. At the last moment, after
twenty hours of solitary supplication and prayer, Narau's ears had
heard the call to go forth with John Starhurst on the mission to the
mountains.

"Master, I will surely go with thee," he had announced.

John Starhurst had hailed him with sober delight. Truly, the Lord was
with him thus to spur on so broken-spirited a creature as Narau.

"I am indeed without spirit, the weakest of the Lord's vessels," Narau
explained, the first day in the canoe.

"You should have faith, stronger faith," the missionary chided him.

Another canoe journeyed up the Rewa that day. But it journeyed an
hour astern, and it took care not to be seen. This canoe was also the
property of Ra Vatu. In it was Erirola, Ra Vatu's first cousin and
trusted henchman; and in the small basket that never left his hand was
a whale tooth. It was a magnificent tooth, fully six inches long,
beautifully proportioned, the ivory turned yellow and purple with age.
This tooth was likewise the property of Ra Vatu; and in Fiji, when such
a tooth goes forth, things usually happen. For this is the virtue of
the whale tooth: Whoever accepts it cannot refuse the