“What did you answer?” she asked.
“I told him,” and he smiled, “that I would dig in the earth and reveal a place where God’s rain is buried. He scoffed at first, but finally agreed to come with his warriors and help with the digging.”
“But, John,” she queried, “will you really be able to dig a well on this island?”
“Of course, I can’t be certain,” he answered; “but I’ve been studying the soil, and it seems probable. Anyway, it’s our one chance to appease the old chief’s ire and continue our work.”
John Gibson Paton had come out to the New Hebrides some years before, and settled on the cannibal island of Tanna.
He had begun at once to teach the people and had succeeded in greatly improving their condition, when a trading vessel had brought measles to the island. An epidemic followed, and the natives died like flies.
They were so bitterly angry against those who had brought the plague that they became suspicious of all white men, even the missionary who had always helped them, and he was finally obliged to flee for his life.
With great difficulty he escaped to a passing ship bound for Australia. From Australia, he went to his homeland, Scotland.
He had a wonderfully happy time on this visit among his friends and relatives, for he was married to the pretty Scotch lassie whom he had learned to love.
He felt that life would be very hard for her on the island of Tanna, and he decided to go, instead, to Aniwa, where the natives were less fierce and more intelligent. Besides, they had asked that a missionary be sent to them.