the occasion, unnecessarily as I think."

"Then go and atone for it with your own," said Bickley, "and everybody
will be pleased."

Waving to them to be silent, I said:

"Are you mad, Marama, that you should ask us to return to sojourn among
people who tried to kill us, merely because the Bellower caused fire to
burn an image of wood and its head to fly from its shoulders, just to
show you that it had no power to hold itself together, although you call
it a god? Not so, we wash our hands of you; we leave you to go your
own way while we go ours, till perchance in a day to come, after many
misfortunes have overtaken you, you creep about our feet and with
prayers and offerings beg us to return."

I paused to observe the effect of my words. It was excellent, for both
Marama and the priest wrung their hands and groaned. Then I went on:

"Meanwhile we have something to tell you. We have entered the cave where
you said no man might set a foot, and have seen him who sits within,
the true god." (Here Bastin tried to interrupt, but was suppressed by
Bickley.)

They looked at each other in a frightened way and groaned more loudly
than before.

"He sends you a message, which, as he told us of your approach, we came
to the shore to deliver to you."

"How can you say that?" began Bastin, but was again violently suppressed
by Bickley.

"It is that he, the real Oro, rejoices that the false Oro, whose face is
copied from his face, has been destroyed. It is that he commands you day
by day to bring food in plenty and lay it upon the Rock of Offerings,
not forgetting a supply of fresh fish from the sea, and with it all
those things that are stored in the house wherein we, the strangers
from the sea, deigned to dwell awhile until we left you because in your
wickedness you wished to murder us."

"And if we refuse--what then?" asked the priest, speaking for the first
time.

"Then Oro will send death and destruction upon you. Then your food shall
fail and you shall perish of sickness and want, and the Oromatuas, the
spirits of the great dead, shall haunt you in your sleep, and Oro shall
eat up your souls."

At these horrible threats both of them uttered a kind of wail, after
which, Marama asked:

"And if we consent, what then, Friend-from-the-Sea?"

"Then, perchance," I answered, "in some day to come we may return to
you, that I may give you of my wisdom and the Great Healer may cure your
sick and the Bellower may lead you t