Mr. Rhys walked the floor of the little chapel, his features working, his breast heaving. Eleanor sat thinking how little she could do—how much she would!
"You have native helpers—?" she said gently.
"Praise the Lord for what they are! but we want missionaries. We want help from England. We cannot get it from the Colonies—not fast enough. Eleanor,"—and he stopped short and faced her—"a few months ago, to give you another instance, I was beholder of such a scene as this. I was to preach to a community that were for the first time publicly renouncing heathenism. It was Sunday."—Mr. Rhys spoke slowly, evidently exercising some control over himself; how often Eleanor had seen him do that in the pulpit!—
"I stood on the shores of a bay, reefed in from the ocean. I wish I could put the scene before you! On the land side, one of the most magnificent landscapes stretched back into the country, with almost every sort of natural beauty. Before me the bay, with ten large canoes moored in it. An island in the bay, I remember, caught the light beautifully; and beyond that there was the white fence of breakers on the reef barrier. The smallest of the canoes would hold a hundred men; they were the fleet of Thakomban, one of Fiji's fiercest kings formerly, with himself and his warriors on board.
"My preaching place was on what had been the dancing grounds of a village. I had a mat stretched on three poles for an awning—such a mat as they make for sails;—and around me were nine others prepared in like manner. This was my chapel. Just at my left hand was a spot of ground where were ten boiling springs; and until that Sunday, one of them had been the due appointed place for cooking human bodies. That was the place and the preparation I looked at in the still Sunday morning, before service time.
"At that time, the time appointed for service, a drum was beat and the conch shell blown; the same shell which had been used to give the war call. Directly all those canoes were covered with men, and they were plunging into the water and wading to shore. These were Thakomban and his warriors. Not blacked and stripped and armed for fighting, but washed and clothed. They were stopping in that place on their way somewhere else, and now coming and gathering to hear the preaching. On the other side came a procession from the village; and down every hillside and along every path, I could see scattering groups and lines of comers from the neighbouring country. These were the heathen inhabitants, coming up now to hear the truth and profess by a public act of worship that they were heathens no longer. They all gathered round me there under the mat awnings, and sat on the grass looking up to hear, while I told them of Jesus."
Mr. Rhys's voice was choked and he broke off abruptly. Eleanor guessed how he had talked to that audience; she could see it in his flushing face and quivering lip. She could not find a word to say, and let him lead her in silence and slowly away from the chapel and towards the mission house. Before entering the plantation again, Eleanor stopped and said in a low voice,
"What can I do?"
He gave her a look of that moved sweetness she had seen in him all day, and answered with his usual abruptness,
"You can pray."