forth our lantern to shed light on the water-soaked
path. Just ahead the surf showed through the darkness white and
threatening, and beyond was the ocean, dim heaving in the dusk. The
clash and roar of the meeting waters filled the air, and we were
sprinkled by the flying spray as we stood debating on the river's edge.
Li-li-noe stepped down into the water to find, if possible, a place
shallow enough to ford, but at the first step she disappeared up to her
shoulders. "That will never do," she said, clambering back: "you cannot
cross there."

"Can we cross above the bridge?" I asked.

"No: the water is ten feet deep there; it is shallower toward the sea."

"Then let us try there;" and into the water we went, Li-li-noe first. It
was not quite waist-deep, and in calm weather there would have been no
danger, but now the current of the river and the tide of the inrushing
sea swept back and forth with the force of a whirlpool. We had got to
the middle when a great wave, white with foam, came roaring toward us
from the ocean. Li-li-noe threw herself forward and began to swim. For a
moment there were darkness and the roar of many waters around me, and my
feet were almost swept from under me. Looking upward at the cloudy sky
and the tall cocoanut trees on the bank, I thought of the home and
friends I might never see again. The bitter salt water wet my face,
quenched the light and carried away my shawl, but the wave returned
without carrying me out to sea. Then above the noise of the waters I
heard Li-li-noe's voice calling to me from the other shore, and just as
another wave surged in I reached her side and sank down on the sand.
After resting a few moments we rose and began picking our way toward the
village, half a mile distant. Our route led along a narrow path between
the muddy, watery road on one side and a still more muddy, watery
taro-patch on the other. Without a light to guide our steps, we slipped,
now with one foot into the road, now with the other into the taro-patch,
and by the time we emerged into the level cactus-field around the church
we were covered with mud to our knees.

Pai-ku-li lived nearly a mile beyond the village, but close by the
church lived Mrs. W----, whose place I had taken as English teacher in
the school. We knocked at her door to beg for a light, and when she
found what the matter was she made us come in, muddy and dripping as we
were, and put on some dry clothes, while her husband, pulling