Putting my arms round her neck I kissed her, and answered, “No indeed I will not hurt you, but I will treat you as a dear sister, and love you very very much.”
A faint smile passed over her countenance, as if she comprehended my answer. After that she would remain contentedly with me—still her mind, for some time longer, continued apparently in the same state as at first. My father and mother, however, felt sure that her senses would ultimately be restored. They were not mistaken; but even when she had begun to speak, she made no allusion to the circumstances of the massacre, or her life among the natives, and we forbore to ask her any questions.
When at last we landed here, her alarm at seeing the natives was very great, and my father was afraid that it would cause her mind to relapse into its former state. By doing all we could to re-assure and cheer her, no ill effects occurred. When once we were settled, and she had got accustomed to the scenery, and the appearance of the people, her improvement was more rapid. In course of time her mind and bodily health were perfectly restored. On seeing me at my lessons, she showed a strong wish to join me, and though she had forgotten even her letters, if she had ever known them, she made rapid progress, so that she was soon able to read fluently, when she eagerly perused every book my father would allow her to have from his library. Even then, however, she could give no account of her former life, and we knew no more of little Maud than at first. My father and mother treated her as they would a daughter, while I looked upon her and loved her as a younger sister.
We had now been upwards of three years at the Station. My father had laboured on in faith, as a missionary in all regions must be prepared to do, for as yet only the comparatively small body of Christians as I have mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism, while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to the new faith than at first. Still my father would often say, when he felt himself inclined to despond, “Let us recollect the value of one immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing.” Such was the state of things at the mission station when my history commences.
Chapter Three.
The islands of the Pacific described.—My mother’s illness.—Nasile, a messenger from Lisele, comes to the settlement, followed shortly by Lislete and Masaugu, who promises to lotu after he has defeated his enemies.—My father warns him in vain of the fearful danger he runs by putting off becoming a Christian.
The vast Pacific—in one of the islands of which the events I am describing occurred—presents a wide and hopeful field for missionary enterprise. It is scattered over with numberless islands—in most cases so clustered together as to form separate groups—some rising in lofty mountains out of the sea, surrounded by coral reefs, beautiful and picturesque in the extreme, while others are elevated but a few feet above the ocean, generally having palm trees growing on them. These latter are known more particularly as coral and lagoon islands. The islands of the character I have last mentioned have been produced by the gradual sinking of the land beneath the ocean, when on its reaching a certain depth, countless millions of coral insects have built their habitations on it, and have continued building till they reached the surface—the new islands consequently keeping the forms of the submerged lands which serve as their foundations. The lagoon islands have been formed by the insects building round the edge of some submerged crater. As the land sank the creatures have continued to build upwards, and thus a ring of coral rock has arisen in the ocean—sometimes complete, at others with a break or opening in it. In other instances the coral insects have built near the shore, and as the land has sunk they have continued to build upwards, but in consequence of requiring the pure salt water, have not advanced towards the land, which, however, still sinking, a wide space of water has appeared between it and the structure raised by them. This is the cause of the numerous encircling reefs which are found around so many of the islands of the Pacific—affording harbours within them, and sheltering the shore from the fury of the waves.
Many of the islands are also of volcanic origin; some contain active volcanoes, and while the land in some instances has sunk, in others it has risen, and is broken into the most curious and fantastic shapes, bringing up also with it the coral rocks which were formed on it while it lay beneath the sea.