we live.'

Then the teachers' wives were asked if they would like to go aboard the
ship, but their answer was that whatever Mrs. Chalmers did they would
do. Therefore it was decided that they should all stay.

During the night the little band of Christians could hear the war-horn
calling the natives together, and the shouts of the cannibals as they
came in from all parts.

In the meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers had made up in parcels the
compensation which they intended to offer the people; but when, at four
o'clock in the morning, the chief arrived to make a last demand he
declared that they were not sufficient.

'If you will wait till the steamer comes I may be able to give you
more,' Chalmers said, 'but at present I cannot.'

'I must have more now,' the chief declared, and departed.

The attack was now expected every minute, but hour after hour passed
and the natives did not re-appear. At three o'clock in the morning
Chalmers turned in, but he had not long been asleep when his wife
discovered the cannibals approaching. Chalmers, aroused by his wife,
ran to the door and faced the savages.

'What do you want?' he asked.

'Give us more compensation,' the leader replied, 'or we will kill you
and burn the house.'

'Kill you may, but no more compensation do I give,' Chalmers answered.
'Remember that if we die, we shall die fighting.'

Then Chalmers took down his musket and loaded it in sight of the
cannibals, who, having seen the missionary shoot birds, feared his
skill. They withdrew and discussed what to do. For about an hour and
a half the band of Christians waited for the attack to be made. Many
of them were, naturally enough, much distressed at the thought of being
killed and eaten, but throughout this trying time Jane Chalmers
remained calm, assured that whatever might happen would be in
accordance with God's will.

But the Chalmers' life-work was not yet ended. The chief of the
village decided that they should not be killed. 'Before this white man
came here with his friends I was nobody,' he said to the men who had
assembled from other parts of New Guinea. 'They have brought me
tomahawks, hoop-iron, red beads and cloth. You have no white man, and
if you try to kill him, you kill him over my body.'

It would have been only natural if Jane Chalmers, after the experiences
she had undergone, had decided that she could no longer live at Suau;
but no such thought ever entered her head. Some month