d in a few minutes their loud cries reached other natives on
shore, and by them was passed on from house to house along the beach
till it reached the town itself. From there, presently, came a deep
sonorous shout, "_Evaka! Evaka!_" ("A ship! A ship!"), and then they
swarmed out of their thatched dwellings like bees from a hive and
ran, laughing and shouting together, down to the beach in front of the
village.

As the clamour increased, the Rev. Wilfrid Deighton opened the door of
his study and stepped out upon the shady verandah of the mission house,
which stood upon a gentle, palm-covered rise about five hundred yards
from the thickly clustering houses of the native village. He was a tall,
thin man with a scanty brown beard, and his face wore a wearied, anxious
expression. His long, lean body, coarse, toil-worn hands, and shabby
clothing indicated, too, that the lines of the Rev. Wilfrid had not been
cast in a pleasant place when he chose the wild, unhealthy island of
Mayou as the field of his labours. But if he showed bodily traces of the
hard, continuous toil he had undergone during the seven years' residence
among the people of Mayou, his eye was still full of the fire of that
noble missionary spirit which animated the souls of such earnest men
as Moffat and Livingstone, and Williams of Erromanga, and Gordon of
Khartoum. For he was an enthusiast, who believed in his work; and so did
his wife, a pretty, faded little woman of thirty, with a great yearning
to save souls, though at times she longed to return to the comforts
and good dinners of semi-civilisation in other island groups nearer the
outside world she had been away from so long.

The missionary stepped out on the verandah, and shaded his eyes from
the glare with his rough, sun-tanned hands, as he looked seaward at the
advancing vessel. Soon his wife followed him and placed her hand on his
shoulder.

"What is it, Wilfrid? Surely not the _John Hunt_. She is not due for
months yet."

"Not her, certainly, Alice," he answered, "and not a trading vessel
either, I should think. She looks more like a yacht Perhaps she may be a
new man-of-war schooner. However, we will soon see. Put on your hat, my
dear, and let us go down to the beach. Already Blount, Schwartzkoff, and
Burrowes have gone; and it certainly would not do for me to remain in
the background when the newcomers land."

Mrs. Deighton, her pale face flushing with gentle excitement at the
prospect of mee