lay about the deck sleeping or
dozing in various sprawling attitudes, with the exception of the captain
and the mate.

The former was a huge, rugged man of forbidding aspect, and obviously
savage temper. The latter--well, it is not easy to say what were his
chief characteristics, so firmly did he control the features of a fine
countenance in which the tiger-like blue eyes alone seemed untamable.
He was not much above the middle height; but his compact frame was wiry
and full of youthful force.

"Lower away the dinghy," said the captain, gruffly, to the mate, "and
let one of these lazy lubbers get into her with a box of figs. Get into
her yourself? I may want you."

The mate replied with a stern "Ay, ay, sir," and rose from the
gun-carriage on which he had been seated, while the captain went below.

In a few minutes the latter reappeared, and soon the little boat with
its three occupants was skimming over the lagoon towards the land.

On that land a strange and interesting work was going on at the time.
It was no less than the erection of a church by men who had never before
placed one stone upon another--at least with a view to house-building.

The tribe to which these builders belonged had at first received their
missionary with yells of execration, had torn the garments from his
back, had kicked him into the sea and would infallibly have drowned him
if the boat from which he landed had not returned in haste and rescued
him. Fortunately, that missionary was well accustomed to a state of
nudity, being himself a South Sea islander. He was also used to a
pretty rough life, besides being young and strong. He therefore soon
recovered from the treatment he had received, and, not many weeks
afterwards, determined to make another attempt to land on the island of
Ratinga--as our coral-gem on the ocean's breast was named.

For Waroonga's heart had been opened by the Holy Spirit to receive Jesus
Christ, and the consequent flame of love to the souls of his countrymen
burned too brightly to be quenched by a first failure. The desire to
possess the little box of clothes and trifles with which he had landed
on Ratinga had been the cause, he thought, of the savages attacking him;
so he resolved to divest himself totally of this world's goods and go to
his brethren with nothing but the Word of God in his hand. He did so.
The mission-boat once again conveyed him from headquarters to the scene
of his former discomfiture, a