It was just an ordinary stone about the size of a swede turnip, with nothing particular in size, shape or colour to distinguish it from many another in the bed of a mountain stream, but it had held a whole village in terror, and would have compelled all, men women and children, to spend at least one night in the bush but for Matareu the teacher.
The village was Groi at Nara, and late one afternoon Poe Ava, wanting some food, went to his garden, but found some one had been there before him, and had cleared off with what he and his family had expected to eat. Poe had no intention of taking that quietly, so hastening back to the village he began a long oration about the wrong he had suffered, and wound up with the threat that he knew where to find the sorcery stone which had belonged to his family for so long, and he would bring it to the village and call upon its spirit Aikaika. He was the master and maker of the thunder, and would send it with lightning and rain and demolish the village, as a punishment for the theft.
Excitement soon reigned in the village. Women gathered food and valuables into their kiapas (the large netted bag) and got ready to hide in the bush. The children catching the spirit of fright began to cry, and the dogs joined in with their dismal howl. They always do when there is any excitement.
Queen Koloka carried to Matareu the teacher news of the terrible threat, but it made little impression on him, and in a few minutes he was in the village trying to prevent the exodus, and put courage into the people. By promising that he would go and see the stone he so far succeeded that few of the people left the village, but that night there was no laughter, and no children were playing round about the houses.
Poe tried to magnify the size of this terrible stone, as he had the evils that would follow its introduction into the village. He was sure it was far too heavy for Matareu to lift, but when he found Matareu determined to see the matter through, he promised to take him to the hiding-place in the morning.
When the morning came, of all in the village only one, a young fellow who had lived with the teacher for some years, had courage enough to risk seeing the stone. Matareu, Poe and this boy started off, and in time halted near a big tree. Then exaggeration number one was exploded, for the stone was found to be small enough to be put into a cracked cooking-pot.
“There is the stone,” said Poe, “but you must not touch it, if you do your hand will shrivel up; but if that boy touches it he will die on the spot.”
“We will see,” answered Matareu, and going to the pot he turned the stone out on the ground.
That was too much for Poe, and he took to his heels, but from a distance seeing that nothing dreadful happened to Matareu, and hearing him calling, he returned.
Matareu is a real believer in prayer, and, there under the shadow of the big tree, with the broken cooking-pot, and the sorcery stone at his feet, and Poe and the boy standing by, he offered a prayer that light might come to Poe and that he might know there was but one God, not Aikaika, but Jehovah.