One party said, “Miaki and Karewick said that Missi made the sickness and the hurricanes, and we ought to kill him.”
Faimungo replied, “They lie about Missi! It is our own bad conduct that makes us sick.”
They answered, “We don’t know who makes the sickness; but our fathers have taught us to kill all foreign men.”
Faimungo, clutching club and spear, exclaimed, standing betwixt them and us, “You won’t kill Missi to-day!”
In the flight we passed springs and streamlets, but though parched with sickening thirst, not one of us durst stoop down to drink, as we should have been almost certainly killed in the act. Faimungo now sent his own men home by a near path, and guided us himself till we were close upon the shore. There, sitting down he said,—
“Missi, I have now fulfilled my promise. I am so tired, I am so afraid, I dare not go farther. My love to you all. Now go on quickly! Three of my men will go with you to the next rocks. Go quickly! Farewell.”
These men went on a little, and then said, “Missi, we dare not go! Faimungo is at war with the people of the next land. You must keep straight along this path.”
So they turned and ran back to their own village.
To us this district was especially perilous. Many years ago the Aneityumese had joined in a war against the Tannese of this tribe, and the thirst for revenge yet existed in their hearts, handed down from sire to son. Besides, Miaki had incited the people here to murder the Teachers and me if we attempted to escape this way. Most providentially the men were absent on a war expedition, and we saw only three lads and a great number of women and children, who ran off to the bush in terror. In the evening the enraged savages of another district assaulted the people of the shore villages for allowing us to pass, and, though sparing their lives, broke in pieces their weapons of war—a very grievous penalty. In the next district, as we hasted along the shore, two young men came running after us, poising their quivering spears. I took the useless revolver out of my little native basket, and raising it cried,—
“Beware! Lay down your spears at once on the sand, and carry my basket to the next landing at the black rocks.”