“No man is too old to serve God,” returned the priest.
There rose a murmur of dissent from the assembled chiefs. The old man would be a dead weight in the boat; by carrying a priest they would infallibly bring down the anger of God upon them all; even the whites who cared for naught but money dreaded to sail with a faifeau.
“This is foolish talk,” said Tuisunga. “Do we not need Zosimus to talk for us in Apia? Do we not know the ways of whites, and their disdain and pride? Who will speak to the German doctor? Everywhere we shall be disregarded and mocked at. We will say that the wife of Tutumanaia is dying, and behold, they will answer with contumely. ‘There is no such minister,’ for we know not his name in the foreign stutter.”
“Let us start,” cried Father Zosimus. “We have no time to waste.”
On the rocky beach they found the boat had already been drawn from the shed and made ready by the young men. Ngau’s house, which stood close by the landing, was packed with his relatives and family, who looked out from beneath the eaves with lowering faces. The sea was white as far as the eye could reach, and was bursting furiously against the coast and into the half-moon of the bay, while overhead, and against the obliterated sky-line, the wild clouds drove stormily to leeward. The young men looked troubled, and old Tuisunga himself was lost in gloom as he studied the breakers that seemed about to engulf them. Father Zosimus alone was calm and unconcerned in the busy tumult of their making ready; for was not God beside him, with the blessed saints? Bidding Filipo tell the minister of their errand, he took his seat without a tremor when the young men lined themselves beside the gunwales, and began to drive the boat slowly into the water.
There was a yell as she floated off. The young men sprang to their paddles, while Tuisunga seized the steering-oar in his sinewy hands. They rode dry over the first wave, then dug into the next bow foremost, and rose half swamped. The third was a huge comber, green as bottle-glass, steep as a park wall, which shot up before them and raced shoreward with a smoking crest. There was a convulsive scurry among the crew; a roar from the crowded beach; as Tuisunga, standing full upright in the stern, and swaying with every jerk of the paddles, headed the boat into the boiling avalanche. The whaler rose like a cork, darted her nose high in air, and for one awful moment seemed to stand on end. When Father Zosimus opened his eyes, she was speeding seaward on something like an even keel, sixteen eager paddles driving her past the point where the breakers sprang. But working out of the bight, they lost the shelter it gave them, and began to feel, for the first time, the unrestrained fury of the gale. There was a frightful sea running; the boat took in water at every turn; and though the wind was favourable, they could not take advantage of it at once. A rag of sail was raised at last, and a straight course laid for Apia, while half the crew rested and the other half baled. But no boat could run before such a sea as followed them. They had one narrow escape, then another by a hair’s-breadth; and as they tried to turn, a great black wave suddenly caught and smothered them beneath mountains of water. The crew rose laughing and shouting to the surface, but one grey head was missing. Father Zosimus had received his martyr’s crown.