ds, caught prawns in the pools and streams. At her bidding he made a
tiny hut of cocoanut branches, a clumsy canoe good enough to fish with,
and nets from the sinnet she taught him how to twist out of cocoanut
husks. She even sent him back to work in the plantation, for the bananas
at least could be saved, and there was a well of sprouting yams and some
_tingapula_ that had somehow escaped destruction. But Jack's spirit was
broken; the old incentive was gone; he could not revive the energy, the
zest, the interest that before had never failed him. He did what Fetuao
bade him and no more, and the days, once so short, seemed now never to
end.

One morning early he was awakened by the murmur of voices in the dark,
and on going to the door of the hut he was surprised to see Fetuao's
brothers, Tua and Anapu, Mele her uncle, Lapongi the orator, and a dozen
others, some of them boys not yet tattooed. In answer to his questions
Tua told him that a messenger had come for them with orders to at once
join the Mataafa forces behind Apia.

"And thou also, Jack," said Lapongi the orator, "for every man now is
needed to withstand the fury of the whites."

Jack, as usual, turned to Fetuao.

"We shall both of us go," said she, "I to carry water for the wounded,
thou with the _muaau_, a rock of strength and terror."

Jack made no protest. Hell! what did it matter where they went? Munching
the food that was handed him, he looked across the bay, now silvering
in the dawn, and wondered whether he was not seeing it for the last
time.

It was late at night when they passed the outposts and reached the
Mataafa camp, which stood on a high plateau overlooking Apia. Below them
the search-lights of the men-of-war moved restlessly about, shining at
times with a bewildering brilliancy into their very faces; and from the
little war-encompassed capital there rose a distant drumming and bugling
as the missionary boy king, unsafe even under the guns of Britain and
America, took his precautions against a night attack. After the
stillness of Oa there was something confusing in the stir and bustle of
Mataafa's big camp--in the constant passing of armed men, the change of
guards, and the rousing choruses around the fires. There was, besides,
an atmosphere of recklessness and gayety, engendered by excitement, by
danger, by the very desperation of their cause, that could not long be
resisted by even the most impassive recruit. Jack alone, of his whole
p