l be pleasant to have Lippy running out and in again," said
Zeppa.

They did not converse much, for the strength of both Zeppa and Rosco had
been so reduced that they could not even sit up long without exhaustion,
but Orlando kept up their spirits by prattling away on every subject
that came into his mind--and especially of the island of Ratinga.

While they were thus engaged they heard the sound of rapidly approaching
footsteps, and next moment Tomeo and Buttchee bounded over the bushes,
glaring and panting from the rate at which they had raced up the hill to
tell the wonderful news!

"Eberyting bu'nt?" exclaimed Ebony, whose eyes and teeth showed so much
white that his face seemed absolutely to sparkle.

"Everything. Idols and temple!" repeated the two chiefs, in the Ratinga
tongue, and in the same breath.

"An' nebber gwine to fight no more?" asked Ebony, with a grin, that
might be more correctly described as a split, from ear to ear.

"Never more!" replied the chiefs.

Next morning the two invalids were tenderly conveyed on litters down the
mountain side and over the plain, and before the afternoon had passed
away, they found a pleasant temporary resting-place in the now Christian
village.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

The slopes and knolls and palm-fringed cliffs of Ratinga were tipped
with gold by the western sun one evening as he declined towards his bed
in the Pacific, when Marie Zeppa wandered with Betsy Waroonga and her
brown little daughter Zariffa towards the strip of bright sand in front
of the village.

The two matrons, besides being filled with somewhat similar anxieties as
to absent ones, were naturally sympathetic, and frequently sought each
other's company. The lively Anglo-French woman, whose vivacity was not
altogether subdued even by the dark cloud that hung over her husband's
fate, took special pleasure in the sedate, earnest temperament of her
native missionary friend, whose difficulty in understanding a joke,
coupled with her inability to control her laughter when, after painful
explanation, she did manage to comprehend one, was a source of much
interest--an under-current, as it were, of quiet amusement.

"Betsy," said Marie, as they walked slowly along, their naked feet just
laved by the rippling sea, "why do you persist in wearing that absurd
bonnet? If you would only let me cut four inches off the crown and six
off the front, it would be much more becoming. Do let me, there's a
dea