“What! you’s not goin’ widout me?” exclaimed Ebony, as one of the sailors thrust him aside from the gangway.
“I fear we are,” said Orlando, as he was about to descend the vessel’s side. “It was as much as I could do to get Waroonga to agree to let me go with him.”
“But dis yar nigger kin die in a good cause as well as you, massa,” said Ebony, in a tone of entreaty so earnest that the men standing near could not help laughing.
“Now then, make haste,” sang out the officer in charge of the boat.
Orlando descended, and the negro, turning away with a deeply injured expression, walked majestically to the stern to watch the boat.
Waroonga had prepared himself for the enterprise by stripping off every article of clothing save a linen cloth round his loins, and he carried nothing whatever with him except a small copy of God’s Word printed in the language of the islanders. This, as the boat drew near to shore, he fastened on his head, among the bushy curls of his crisp black hair, as in a nest.
Orlando had clothed himself in a pair of patched old canvas trousers, and a much worn unattractive cotton shirt.
“Stop now,” said the missionary, when the boat was about five or six hundred yards from the beach. “Are you ready?”
“Ready,” said Orlando.
“Then come.”