and gentle, brought food, and young drinking nuts
upon platters of leaf, and silently placed them before the White Man,
who touched the food with his hand and drank a little of a coco-nut, and
then turned to Teveiva and said:--

"O friend, I cannot eat because of the sorrow that hath come upon thee.
Tell me how it befel."

Speaking slowly, and with many tears, the old teacher told of how a ship
from Tahiti had brought the dread disease to the island, and how in a
little less than two months one in every three of the three hundred
and ten people had died, and of the long drought that followed upon the
sickness, when for a whole year the sky was as brass, and the hot sun
beat down upon the land, and withered up the coco-palms and pandanus
trees; and only for the night dews all that was green would have
perished. And now because of the long drought men were weak, and
sickening, and women and children were feint from want of food.

"It is as if God hath deserted us," said the old man.

"Nay," I assured him, "have no fear. Rain is near. It will come from the
westward as it has come to many islands which for a year have been eaten
up with drought and hunger like this land of Nukutavake. Have no fear, I
say. Wind and much heavy rain will soon come from the west."

Then I wrote a few lines to the skipper.

"Send this letter to the ship by my boat," I said to Teveiva, "and
the captain will fill the boat with food. It is the ship's gift to the
people."

And then for the first time since the island had been smitten, the poor
women and children laughed joyously, and the men sprang to their feet,
and with loud shouts ran to the boat with the messenger who carried the
letter.

"Come, old friend," I said to the teacher, "walk with me round the
island. I would once more look upon the lagoon and sit with you a little
while as we have sat many times before, under the great _toa_ tree that
grows upon the point on the weather side."

And so we two passed out of the mission house, and hand in hand, like
children, went into the quiet village and along the sandy path that
wound through the vista of serried, grey-boled palms, till we came to
the white, inner beach of the calm lagoon, which shone and glistened
like burnished silver. On the beach were some canoes.

Half a cable length from the shore, a tiny, palm-clad islet floated
on that shining lake, and the drooping fronds of the palms cast their
shadows upon the crystal water. B