Then suddenly the white man remembered the night he had spent in Aveo’s village long ago, and the magic charms he had seen there.
“I remember them well,” he said; “what of them?”
“Do you want them now?”
“Yes; will you sell them to me?”
“No—no payment, Tamate. At night when no one is about I will bring them to you.”
At night Aveo came creeping in. He peered all round. He saw two men looking in at a door. They had been watching Tamate as he wrote. Aveo wished no one to see. He said, “Send these men away.”
When he saw that all the windows and doors were shut, he opened his bag and unwound the parcel as before. It was not so eerie as it had been in his own little room, with the gleaming logs.
Although Aveo no longer used his charms it was not easy for him to part with them, and Tamate was so much afraid that he would be sorry and ask them back again, that whenever he got the bag with its strange little dolls, he hurried down to his ship that lay at anchor near the shore. He could talk more happily with Aveo, when he knew that the charms were safely locked up on board.
Next morning Mr. Chalmers set sail for another village. There was a heavy sea rolling, and the little ship was driven against a point of rock. Although Aveo had tried to hide his charms from every one when he took them to Tamate, the natives had found out that they were on board. Though many of these men loved Jesus Christ, they could scarcely believe that the charms had no power at all. When the ship struck the reef they said, “Tamate has Aveo’s things, and the ship is wrecked and Tamate drowned.”
But in spite of the stormy seas every one reached land safely. The ship was floated off the reef and mended, and in a day or two Tamate and the charms sailed away out of the bay.