“Don’t land them,” said the wily Chief; “just throw them over; my men and I will catch everything before it reaches the water, and carry them all safely ashore!”
The Captain said he durst not. “Then,” persisted Nowar, “just point them out to us; you will have no further trouble; we will manage everything for Missi.”
They were in distress when he refused; and poor old Nowar tried another tack. Suspecting that my dear wife was afraid of them, he got us on shore to see his extensive plantations. Turning eagerly to her, he said, leaving me to interpret,—
“Plenty of food! While I have a yam or a banana, you shall not want.”
She answered, “I fear not any lack of food.”
Pointing to his warriors, he cried, “We are many! We are strong! We can always protect you.”
“I am not afraid,” she calmly replied.
He then led us to that fig-tree, in the branches of which I had sat during a lonely and memorable night, when all hope had perished of any earthly deliverance, and said to her with a manifest touch of genuine emotion,—
“The God who protected Missi there will always protect you.”
She told him that she had no fear of that kind, but explained to him that we must for the present go to Aniwa, but would return to Tanna, if the Lord opened up our way. Nowar, Arkurat, and the rest, seemed to be genuinely grieved, and it touched my soul to the quick.
A beautiful incident was the outcome, as we learned only in long after years. There was at that time an Aniwan Chief on Tanna, visiting friends. He was one of their great Sacred Men. He and his people had been promised a passage home in the _Dayspring_, with their canoes in tow. When old Nowar saw that he could not keep us with himself, he went to this Aniwan Chief, and took the white shells, the insignia of Chieftainship, from his own arm, and bound them on the Sacred Man, saying,—
“By these you promise to protect my Missionary and his wife and child on Aniwa. Let no evil befall them; or, by this pledge, I and my people will revenge it.”
In a future crisis, this probably saved our lives, as shall be afterwards related. After all, a bit of the Christ-Spirit had found its way into that old Cannibal’s soul! And the same Christ-Spirit in me yearned more strongly still, and made it a positive pain to pass on to another Island, and leave him in that dim-groping twilight of the soul.
Aniwa became my Mission Home in November, 1866; and ever since, save on my, alas! too frequent deputation pilgrimages among Churches in Great Britain and in the Colonies, it has been the heart and centre of my personal labours amongst the Heathen. God never guided me back to Tanna; but others, my dear friends, have seen His Kingdom planted and beginning to grow amongst that slowly relenting race. Aniwa was to be the land wherein my past years of toil and patience and faith were to see their fruits ripening at length. I claimed Aniwa for Jesus, and by the Grace of God Aniwa now worships at the Saviour’s feet.
The Island of Aniwa is one of the smaller isles of the New Hebrides. It measures about nine miles by three and a half, and is everywhere girt round with a belt of coral reef. The sea breaks thereon heavily, with thundering roar, and the white surf rolls in furious and far. But there are days of calm, when all the sea is glass, and the spray on the reef is only a fringe of silver.
The ledges of coral rock indicate that Aniwa has been heaved up from its ocean bed, at three or four separate bursts of mighty volcanic power. No stone or other rock anywhere appears, but only and always the coral, in its beautiful and mysterious variety. The highest land is less than three hundred feet above the level of the sea; and though the soil is generally light, there are patches good and deep, mostly towards the southern end of the island, and near the crater of an extinct volcano, where excellent plantations are found, and which, if carefully cultivated, might support ten times the present population.