om a distance,
taking advantage for concealment of turns in the way, and of trees and
underwood beside the road. Some four miles' walking, for which I was
very unfit, brought us across a neck of land, and from high ground in the
middle I again beheld the sea. Very much to my surprise the cape on
which I looked down, safe in the rear of the descending multitude, was
occupied by a kind of city.

The houses were not the mere huts of South Sea Islanders, but, though
built for the most part of carved and painted wood, had white stone
foundations, and were of considerable height. On a rock in the centre of
the bay were some stone edifices which I took to be temples or public
buildings. The crowd gradually broke up, turning into their own
dwellings on the shore, where, by the way, some large masted vessels were
drawn up in little docks. But, while the general public, if I may say
so, slowly withdrew, the woman with the idol in her arms, accompanied by
some elderly men of serious aspect, climbed the road up to the central
public buildings.

Moved by some impulse which I could hardly explain, I stealthily followed
them, and at last found myself on a rocky platform, a kind of public
square, open on one side to the sea, and shut in on either hand, and at
the back, by large houses with smooth round pillars, and decorated with
odd coloured carvings. There was in the open centre of the square an
object which I recognized as an altar, with a fire burning on it. Some
men came out of the chief building, dragging a sheep, with chains of
flowers round its neck. Another man threw something on the fire, which
burned with a curious smell. At once I recognized the savour of incense,
against which (as employed illegally by the Puseyites) I had often firmly
protested in old days at home. The spirit of a soldier of the Truth
entered into me; weary as I was, I rushed from the dusky corner where I
had been hidden in the twilight, ran to the altar, and held up my hand
with my hymn-book as I began to repeat an address that had often silenced
the papistic mummers in England. Before I had uttered half a dozen
words, the men who were dragging the sheep flew at me, and tried to seize
me, while one of them offered a strange-looking knife at my throat. I
thought my last hour had come, and the old Adam awakening in me, I
delivered such a blow with my right on the eye of the man with the knife,
that he reeled and fell heavily against the altar.