his door. The door opened, and the
black, frightened faces of Papuans, with staring eyes, looked at him.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

And they told him that, as they came at sunset along the path from the
people of Larogi to Port Moresby, they found by the side of the path a
white man. "He was dying," they said. "We were afraid to touch him. If
we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore."

Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to
the men said:

"Come and guide me to the place."

They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The
man will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go."

Ruatoka's father had told him when he was a boy how his own people in
the years before had dreaded the spirit-demons of Mangaia, but that
he must learn that there were no spirits to be dreaded; that one great
Father-Spirit ruled above all, and would take care of His children,
and that all those children must love one another.

So Rua, as they called him, knowing that the white man who lay sick
by the roadside in the night, though of another colour, was yet a
brother, and knowing that no demon spirit could harm him in the dark,
lighted his lantern, poured water into a bottle, took a long piece of
cloth, folded it up, and started out under the stars.

He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys
along the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird.
At last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could
ever find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side
and all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he
found the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found
there, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly
dead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious.

Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of
the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville,
took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained
with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack
upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that
rose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man
on his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the
hill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking
over the eastern hills,