re. When he was gone, Peterkin stepped up to Jack, and touching his
cap, said:

"Well, captain, have you any communications to make to your _men_?"

"Yes," cried Jack: "ready about, mind the helm, and clew up your tongue,
while I con the schooner through the passage in the reef. The teacher,
who seems a first-rate fellow, says it's quite deep, and good anchorage
within the lagoon close to the shore."

While the vessel was slowly advancing to her anchorage, under a light
breeze, Jack explained to us that Avatea was still on the island, living
amongst the heathens; that she had expressed a strong desire to join the
Christians; but Tararo would not let her, and kept her constantly in
close confinement.

"Moreover," continued Jack, "I find that she belongs to one of the
Samoan Islands, where Christianity had been introduced long before her
capture by the heathens of a neighbouring island; and the very day after
she was taken she was to have joined the church which had been planted
there by that excellent body, the London Missionary Society. The
teacher tells me, too, that the poor girl has fallen in love with a
Christian chief, who lives on an island some fifty miles or so to the
south of this one, and that she is meditating a desperate attempt at
escape. So, you see, we have come in the nick of time.--I fancy that
this chief is the fellow whom you heard of, Ralph, at the island of
Emo.--Besides all this, the heathen savages are at war among themselves,
and there's to be a battle fought the day after to-morrow, in which the
principal leader is Tararo; so that we'll not be able to commence our
negotiations with the rascally chief till the day after."

The village off which we anchored was beautifully situated at the head
of a small bay, from the margin of which trees of every description
peculiar to the tropics rose in the richest luxuriance to the summit of
a hilly ridge, which was the line of demarcation between the possessions
of the Christians and those of the neighbouring heathen chief.

The site of the settlement was an extensive plot of flat land,
stretching in a gentle slope from the sea to the mountain. The cottages
stood several hundred yards from the beach, and were protected from the
glare of the sea by the rich foliage of rows of large Barringtonia and
other trees which girt the shore. The village was about a mile in
length, and perfectly straight, with a wide road down the middle, on
either side of