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Updated: June 16, 2025
ONE morning, the Tannese, rushing towards me in great excitement, cried, "Missi, Missi, there is a God, or a ship on fire, or something of fear, coming over the sea! We see no flames, but it smokes like a volcano. Is it a Spirit, a God, or a ship on fire? What is it? what is it?"
Finally, the Sacred Man rose again, and showed them rows of beautiful white shells strung round his left arm, saying "Nowar, the great Chief at Port Resolution on Tanna, when he saw that Missi and his wife could not be kept there, took me to his heart, and pledged me by these, the shells of his office as Chief, taken from his own arm and bound on mine, to protect them from all harm.
There he stood for a whole day, offering his penny for a ticket by every train, only to meet with refusal after refusal, till he broke down, and cried aloud in such English as desperation gave him: "If me savvy road, me go. Me no savvy road, and stop here me die. My Missi Paton live at Kilda. Me want go Kilda. Me no money. Bad fellow took all! Send me Kilda."
I wish to lie beside them, that we may rise together in the Great Day when Jesus comes. I am happy, looking unto Jesus! One thing only deeply grieves me now; I fear God is taking us all away from Tanna, and will leave my poor people dark and benighted as before, for they hate Jesus and the Worship of Jehovah. O Missi, pray for them, and pray for me once more before I go!"
I appealed to Nowar, who only said, "That is his conduct, Missi, our conduct!" I replied, "As he has got the blankets which I saved to keep me from ague and fever, and I have nothing left now but the clothes I have on, surely you will give me paddles." Nowar gave me one. Returning to the village, friends gave me one each till I got other three. Now Arkurat started up, and refused to let us go.
An old man, Sirawia, one of Ian's under-chiefs, then said, "Miaki and Nouka say that the land on which Missi lives was theirs; though they sold it to him and he has paid them for it, they all know that it was ours, and is yet ours by right; but if they let Missi live on it in peace, we will all live at peace, and worship Jehovah. And if not, we will surely claim it again."
"O Lord, our Heavenly Father, they have murdered Thy servants on Erromanga. They have banished the Aneityumese from dark Tanna. And now they want to kill Missi Paton and me! Our great King, protect us, and make their hearts soft and sweet to Thy Worship. Or, if they are permitted to kill us, do not Thou hate us, but wash us in the blood of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ.
Faimungo was much afraid, and said, "Missi, go on in that path, you and your Aneityumese; and I will follow when I have had a smoke and a talk with these men." I replied, "No, I will stand by your side till you go; and if I am killed, it will be by your side, I will not leave you." He implored us to go on, but that I knew would be certain death.
This object he accomplished most satisfactorily by changing the dukes or local lords into counts or king's men, by appointing a Count of the Palace for Italy, and by extending to that kingdom the perfectly organized system of central control by means of the Missi Dominici, with the workings of which in the other parts of his great empire the student of history is too well acquainted to need any description here.
Two of our best portraits of Savonarola, the earlier inscribed "Hieronymi Ferrariensis a Deo Missi Prophetae Effigies," the later treated to represent S. Peter Martyr, are from the hand of Fra Bartolommeo. See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. p. 433. See below, chapter vii. This sonnet I have translated into English with such closeness to the original words as I found possible:
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