boyhood when I had attended lectures on the subject, which I had tried
to refresh by help of an encyclopedia I had brought from the ship,
I wished to attempt to obtain an idea of our position by help of the
stars. In this endeavour, I may say, I failed absolutely, as I did not
know how to take a stellar or any other observation.

On my way out of our native house I observed, by the lantern I carried,
that the compartment of it occupied by Bastin was empty, and wondered
whither he had gone at that hour. On arriving at my observation-post, a
rocky eminence on open ground, where, with Tommy at my side, I took my
seat with a telescope, I was astonished to see or rather to hear a great
number of the natives walking past the base of the mound towards the
bush. Then I remembered that some one, Marama, I think, had informed me
that there was to be a great sacrifice to Oro at dawn on that day. After
this I thought no more of the matter but occupied myself in a futile
study of the heavenly bodies. At length the dawn broke and put a period
to my labours.

Glancing round me before I descended from the little hill, I saw a flame
of light appear suddenly about half a mile or more away among those
trees which I knew concealed the image of Oro. On this personally I had
never had the curiosity to look, as I knew that it was only a hideous
idol stuck over with feathers and other bedizenments. The flame shot
suddenly straight into the still air and was followed a few seconds
later by the sound of a dull explosion, after which it went out. Also it
was followed by something else--a scream of rage from an infuriated mob.

At the foot of the hill I stopped to wonder what these sounds might
mean. Then of a sudden appeared Bickley, who had been attending some
urgent case, and asked me who was exploding gunpowder. I told him that I
had no idea.

"Then I have," he answered. "It is that ass Bastin up to some game. Now
I guess why he wanted that paraffin. Listen to the row. What are they
after?"

"Sacrificing Bastin, perhaps," I replied, half in jest. "Have you your
revolver?"

He nodded. We always wore our pistols if we went out during the dark
hours.

"Then perhaps we had better go to see."

We started, and had not covered a hundred yards before a girl, whom
I recognised as one of Bastin's converts, came flying towards us and
screaming out, "Help! Help! They kill the Bellower with fire! They cook
him like a pig!"

"Just what I expec