"I knew not what to say. Mr. Vigours had evidently been driven out of
Falesa by the machinations of Case, and with something not very unlike
the collusion of my pastor. I called to mind it was Namu who had
reassured me about Adams and traced the rumour to the ill-will of the
priest. And I saw I must inform myself more thoroughly from an impartial
source. There is an old rascal of a chief here, Faiaso, whom I daresay
you saw to-day at the council; he has been all his life turbulent and
sly, a great fomenter of rebellions, and a thorn in the side of the
mission and the island. For all that he is very shrewd, and, except in
politics or about his own misdemeanours, a teller of the truth. I went
to his house, told him what I had heard, and besought him to be frank. I
do not think I had ever a more painful interview. Perhaps you will
understand me, Mr. Wiltshire, if I tell you that I am perfectly serious
in these old wives' tales with which you reproached me, and as anxious
to do well for these islands as you can be to please and to protect your
pretty wife. And you are to remember that I thought Namu a paragon, and
was proud of the man as one of the first ripe fruits of the mission. And
now I was informed that he had fallen in a sort of dependence upon Case.
The beginning of it was not corrupt; it began, doubtless, in fear and
respect, produced by trickery and pretence; but I was shocked to find
that another element had been lately added, that Namu helped himself in
the store, and was believed to be deep in Case's debt. Whatever the
trader said, that Namu believed with trembling. He was not alone in
this; many in the village lived in a similar subjection; but Namu's case
was the most influential, it was through Namu Case had wrought most
evil; and with a certain following among the chiefs, and the pastor in
his pocket, the man was as good as master of the village. You know
something of Vigours and Adams, but perhaps you have never heard of old
Underhill, Adams' predecessor. He was a quiet, mild old fellow, I
remember, and we were told he had died suddenly: white men die very
suddenly in Falesa. The truth, as I now heard it, made my blood run
cold. It seems he was struck with a general palsy, all of him dead but
one eye, which he continually winked. Word was started that the helpless
old man was now a devil, and this vile fellow Case worked upon the
natives' fears, which he professed to share, and pretended he durst not
go in