mains to this day an open question,
as all liberal and conservative questions will probably remain till the
crack of doom.

One day, to the inexpressible surprise and joy of the islanders, a large
vessel was seen to pass through the narrow opening in the coral reef,
and cast anchor in the lagoon. The excitement on Ratinga was great, for
vessels rarely had occasion to visit the island, although some of them,
probably South Sea whalers, were seen to pass it on the horizon two or
three times a year.

Immediately four canoes full of natives put off to visit the stranger;
but on reaching her they were sternly told to keep off, and the order
was silently enforced by the protruding muzzle of a carronade, and the
forbidding aspect of several armed men who looked over the side. "We
are men of peace," said Waroonga, who was in the foremost canoe, "and
come as Christian friends."

"We are men of war," growled one of the men, "an' don't want no friends,
Christian or otherwise."

"We came to offer you hospitality," returned the missionary in a
remonstrative tone.

"An' we came to take all the hospitality we want of you without waitin'
for the offer," retorted the sailor, "so you'd better go back to where
you came from, an' keep yourselves quiet, if ye don't want to be blowed
out o' the water."

This was sufficient. With disappointed looks the natives turned their
canoes shoreward and slowly paddled home.

"Depend upon it, this is another pirate," said Orlando, when Waroonga
reported to him the result of his visit.

"What would you advise us to do?" asked Waroonga.

Lest the reader should be surprised at this question, we must remind him
that Orlando had, in the course of these three years, grown up almost to
manhood. The southern blood in his veins, and the nature of the climate
in which he had been born and brought up, may have had something to do
with his early development; but, whatever the cause, he had, at the
early age of eighteen, become as tall and nearly as powerful as his
father had been, and so like to him in aspect and manner, that the
natives began to regard him with much of that respect and love which
they had formerly entertained towards Antonio. Of course Orlando had
not the sprinkling of grey in his short black curly hair which had
characterised the elder Zeppa; but he possessed enough of the black
beard and moustache, in a soft rudimental form, to render the
resemblance to what his sire had been ve