They scampered off to the creek where the boys had left her. Smash! bang! crash! the stone clubs fell on the beautiful boat. She was the last gift that Mrs. Chalmers had given to the work her husband loved. Crack! crick! went the wood. In a few minutes there was only a pile of splinters. Each warrior took one. Afterwards he stuck it up in his clubhouse to show that he too had had a share in the death of the great white chief.
On board the Nieu the captain and Hiro had sent hurried glances after the boat as she went towards the shore. They could not look for long at a time, for they had to try to keep the natives from breaking and wrecking the ship. They saw the boat grow smaller and smaller. They saw the canoes close in upon it. Still they could trace its course. They saw it reach the village and go close to the shore. Then it came out into deep water again. Again it entered the village, and after that they could not see it any more.
No boat came
No clear sounds came to them from Dopima, but around them were many sounds. Everything that could be taken was seized and thrown into the canoes. It was hard to see good things broken and soiled. But the pain of that was nothing to the pain that Hiro and the captain felt as the hours went on and no signal reached them from the shore.
At last the savages left them and quiet settled down on the ship. The quiet was more dreadful than the noise of the morning had been. It left time to look and look towards the shore for the boat that would never come again.
The Nieu lifted her anchor and steamed up and down. All day long she waited near Dopima. After sunset she sailed out to sea beyond the island and anchored there. Next day she sailed along the shore again. The two sad men on board gazed towards the village but no boat came.
At last they sailed to Daru to tell that the great white chief had died for his people.
Yet Tamate did not wish his friends to think of him as dead, when they could not see him any more. He wished them to know that he lives and works gladly in the great life beyond the grave, and that he knows and loves his Master Jesus Christ far better than he could on earth. Not very long before he died, he had written of the life after death, “I shall have good work to do, great brave work for Christ.”
As the news of Tamate’s death came to Daru, and Motu-motu, Port Moresby and Suau, and to all the villages between them, New Guinea was stricken with sorrow. Men and women and children were sick with grief.