broder chiefs an' I have watch you many days. You have always do wot is
right, no matter wot trouble follers to you. You do this for love of
your God, your Saviour, so you tells me. Good, I do not need much
palaver. Wen de sun shines it am hot; wen not shine am cold. Wot more?
Cookee missionary have _say_ the truth. My slave have _prove_ the
truth. I love you, Jowin. I love your God. I keep you if possible,
but Christian must not have slave. Go--you is free."

"You don't mean _that_, old man?" cried Jarwin, starting up with
flashing eyes and seizing his master's hand.

"You is free!" repeated Big Chief.

We need not relate all that honest John Jarwin said and did after that.
Let it suffice to record his closing remarks that night to Cuffy.

"Cuff," said he, patting the shaggy head of his humble friend, "many a
strange thing crops up in this here koorious world, but it never did
occur to my mind before, that while a larned man like a missionary might
_state_ the truth, the likes o' me should have the chance an' the power
to _prove_ it. That's a wery koorious fact, so you an' I shall go to
sleep on it, my doggie--good-night."

CHAPTER NINE.

THE LAST.

That Jarwin's deliverance from slavery was not a dream, but a blessed
reality, was proved to him next day beyond all doubt by the singular
proceedings of Big Chief and his tribe. Such of the native idols as had
not been burned on the previous day were brought out, collected into a
heap, and publicly burned, after which the whole tribe assembled on the
palavering ground, and Big Chief made a long, earnest, and animated
speech, in which he related all that he had seen of his white slave's
conduct at the island of Raratonga, and stated how that conduct had
proved to him, more conclusively than anything else he had heard or
seen, that the religion of the white missionaries was true.

While this was being spoken, many sage reflections were passing through
Jarwin's mind, and a feeling of solemn thankfulness filled him when he
remembered how narrowly he had escaped doing inconceivable damage by
giving way to temptation and breaking his word. He could not avoid
perceiving that, if he had not been preserved in a course of rectitude
all through his terrible trial, at a time when he thought that no one
was thinking about him, not only would Big Chief and his nation have
probably remained in heathen superstition, and continued to practise all
the horrid and