“Excellency,” said the boy, “saving thy presence, the Helper lies. Behold in this pigeon the truth of what I say. Does the chief use gravel in his gun, like a Samoan, to whom there is no lead?”
“Perhaps he does,” said the priest. “Such a thing had not occurred to me.”
“Perhaps he does not,” exclaimed Ngalo, meaningly. “On Tuesday he bought eight birds of my mother’s brother’s son; one was scented and had to be thrown away.”
“Ngalo,” cried the priest, with a sudden change of tone, “is there a woman in this hidden business? Is there gossip in the village?”
Ngalo shook his head.
“He is blameless of such an evil,” he said. “But the village talks continually, and the people ask, ‘What does the Helper in the bush?’”
Father Studby breathed a great sigh of relief.
“He walks about,” he explained, “this way and that, according to the command of the wise doctor in Nukualofa. The peace refreshes him and makes him well. I, too, in my youth, used to wander in the mountains and find consolation.”
Ngalo’s face showed that he had more to tell.
“The Helper does strange things,” he said. “He goes along, even as you say, through the village and the outlying plantations like an uncaring child, with no purpose in what it does. But when he reaches a certain ifi-tree on the land we call Lefoa, behold, all is changed. He stops, he looks about, he listens assiduously like a warrior on the outpost. Then he puts his gun in a hidden place, and with it his shot-bottle and his powder-bottle; then he girds up his dress to the knee, and runs into the bush with the swiftness of a dog. When he returns, late in the afternoon, it is with the same quickness until the tree is reached. There he takes breath, composes himself, and with slow steps returns seaward buying what pigeons he can on the road.”