request that may
accompany it or follow it. The request may be anything from a human life
to a tribal alliance, and no Fijian is so dead to honor as to deny the
request when once the tooth has been accepted. Sometimes the request
hangs fire, or the fulfilment is delayed, with untoward consequences.

High up the Rewa, at the village of a chief, Mongondro by name, John
Starhurst rested at the end of the second day of the journey. In the
morning, attended by Narau, he expected to start on foot for the smoky
mountains that were now green and velvety with nearness. Mongondro was
a sweet-tempered, mild-mannered little old chief, short-sighted
and afflicted with elephantiasis, and no longer inclined toward the
turbulence of war. He received the missionary with warm hospitality,
gave him food from his own table, and even discussed religious matters
with him. Mongondro was of an inquiring bent of mind, and pleased
John Starhurst greatly by asking him to account for the existence and
beginning of things. When the missionary had finished his summary of
the Creation according to Genesis, he saw that Mongondro was deeply
affected. The little old chief smoked silently for some time. Then he
took the pipe from his mouth and shook his head sadly.

"It cannot be," he said. "I, Mongondro, in my youth, was a good workman
with the adze. Yet three months did it take me to make a canoe--a small
canoe, a very small canoe. And you say that all this land and water was
made by one man--"

"Nay, was made by one God, the only true God," the missionary
interrupted.

"It is the same thing," Mongondro went on, "that all the land and all
the water, the trees, the fish, and bush and mountains, the sun, the
moon, and the stars, were made in six days! No, no. I tell you that in
my youth I was an able man, yet did it require me three months for one
small canoe. It is a story to frighten children with; but no man can
believe it."

"I am a man," the missionary said.

"True, you are a man. But it is not given to my dark understanding to
know what you believe."

"I tell you, I do believe that everything was made in six days."

"So you say, so you say," the old cannibal murmured soothingly.

It was not until after John Starhurst and Narau had gone off to bed
that Erirola crept into the chief's house, and, after diplomatic speech,
handed the whale tooth to Mongondro.

The old chief held the tooth in his hands for a long time. It was a
beautiful to