squalls drove us past the
land. In the morning there was but the open sea, and the waves were
white and angry, and all that day and the next Manaia kept the boat to
the wind, hoping that it would change and let us sail back to Uea. But
we hoped vainly; and then, on the third day, there came such a furious
storm that we could do naught but drive before it, and go on and on into
the great unknown western ocean, whither so many have gone, and have
been no more known of men. For many, many days we sailed on, and then,
although we had much rain and so suffered no thirst, our food began to
fail, and had not Manaia one day caught a sleeping turtle, we should
have perished. Some time about the fourteenth day, we saw the jagged
peaks of an island against the sky, and steered for it. It was the
island called Rotumah--a fine, fair country, with mountains and valleys
and running streams, and on it dwell people who are like unto us Samoans
in appearance and manners and language. We sailed the boat into a bay on
which stood a village of many houses, and the people made us welcome and
gave us much food, and besought us to stay there, for their island was,
they said, a better place than Uea. And this we should have done and
been content, but in the night, as I slept in the house of the unmarried
women, a girl whispered in my ear--

"Get thee away with thy lover and the girl Selema. Felipa, the head
chief of Fao, hath been told of thy beauty, and hath sent word here that
the man Manaia must be killed to-night, and thou and Selema be sent to
him. This is wrong for even a chief to do, and we of this place would
aid thee to escape."

So Manaia and I and Selema stole away to the boat, and the people of the
village, who pitied us, pretended not to hear or see us. They were very
kind, and had put baskets of cooked food and other things into the boat;
and so we pushed off, and stood out to sea once more. They had told
us to go round to the north end of the island, where there was a chief
named Loli, who would protect us and give us a home.

But again evil fortune befell us, for the chief of Fao, hearing of our
escape, sent a messenger overland to Loli, claiming us as _mea tafea i
moana_--gifts sent to him by the sea--and asking him to hold us for him.
And so Loli, who would have welcomed us, was afraid, and begged us not
to land and so bring about bloodshed.

"Great is my sorrow, O wanderers," he cried to us, as we sat in the boat
a littl