Note 57 — Chapter XXVI

News has recently been received that four of these native teachers have been treacherously murdered and eaten by the cannibal people of the Duke of York Island, on which they, with their wives and little ones, had settled in the hope of forming a separate mission. The murderers threatened also to kill and eat the widows and orphans, and urged the natives of New Britain likewise to dispose of their teachers, and especially of the white missionary. The latter, being a Christian of the muscular type, deemed it wise, once for all, to teach these murderers that the shedding of blood involves punishment in kind; so mustering his little band of Fijian and Samoan catechists, he crossed over to the offending isle, rescued the widows and orphans, and routed the horde of savages, who received a somewhat severe lesson on this occasion. These distressing tidings reached Fiji just as a fresh detachment of teachers was about to start for New Britain. Their determination was in no degree shaken. One of them expressed the feeling of all when he said: “If the people of New Britain kill and eat my body, I shall go to a place where there is no more pain or death; it is all right.” One of the wives was asked whether she still intended to accompany her husband to a scene of so great danger; she replied: “I am like the outrigger of a canoe—where the canoe goes, there you will surely find the outrigger!” Brave helpmeets these!