d dreaded. I must break the news to these
waiting children that the priests from the stars had not come to bring
them new and permanent wonders, but to take back to the lands of mystery
their goddess and myself. I wished then for a full knowledge of their
tongue, that I might soften the tidings, but I could not bring myself
to the mendacity of promising a return, though they pleaded. When it
came to parting with Ra Tuiki, I forgot my quasi-divinity and seized the
old head-hunter's hand in an ungodlike, Anglo-Saxon grip.

Their island would now be charted. Missionaries would come to them with
teachings of a new faith, but treading on their heels would come men of
another sort, and as I thought of these I wished that we might be able
to leave the place unchronicled. The contract trader would soon arrive,
supported if need be by the authority of his flag's navy, bringing to my
cannibals, or some of them, long terms of peonage under hard plantation
masters.

"What, if I may ask," suggested the solemn-visaged Scot at the helm,
when the bow was turned outward and the boat crew was bending to the
oars, "was all the demonstration of th' niggers?"

"They were saying good-bye," I explained, "We came to have a very
satisfactory understanding."

He pondered my answer for a time in sober silence, then dismissed the
matter with a single observation.

"They took it cruel hard, sir."

Over the side of the _Gretchen_ I went to a kindly reception. I told all
of my story that I wished to tell, admitting that I had posed as a sort
of demi-god, but breathing no hint of the godship which was over my
priesthood.

A week of hurricane and storm had tested the ship's endurance, exhausted
the crew, and driven the _Gretchen_ into unknown waters.

"If it hadn't been for your signal fires," the captain told me, "we
might have gone to smash on the outlying needles. Your lights probably
saved us as well as yourself."

This was no larger ship than the _Wastrel_, but when one went to his
berth at night it was with confidence that his sleep would not be
interrupted by the sudden necessity of getting up to die. She had
carried a cargo of trade stuffs south and was returning to Singapore by
way of Brisbane, laden with copra and pearl shell. Her direction lay
westerly while I wished to go east, but that was secondary. At the
Australian port, I could reship. Indeed, I was told our course might
shortly cross that of a regular line of steamers betwe