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Updated: June 2, 2025
The whole party sprang up and followed their chief at full gallop down the pass. The still petrified Raturans heard the sound of rushing feet. When Wapoota saw the dark forms of his comrades appear, he filled his chest and opened his mouth, and the awful skirl arose once again, as if to pollute the night-air. Then Ongoloo roared.
There is a proverb relating to the plans of men as well as mice, which receives verification in every land and time. Its truth received corroboration at this time on Sugar-loaf Island. On that same night it chanced that the chief Ongoloo was unable to sleep. He sent for his prime-ministerial-jester and one of his chiefs, to whom he proposed a ramble.
But he could not resist the tendency to steal, and one day pilfered something or other from Ongoloo, who finally lost patience with him, for he was an old offender. Ongoloo, though neither a warlike nor ferocious fellow, vowed to cut out the heart and liver of Wapoota, and expose them to public gaze.
Now, in Sugar-loaf Island, there was a tribe that had, for years past, been at war with the tribe into whose hands Zeppa had thus fallen, and, not long after the events just narrated, it chanced that the Ratura tribe, as it was named, resolved to have another brush with their old enemies, the subjects of Ongoloo. What they did, and how they did it, shall be seen in another chapter.
He stood with his arms crossed, and an expression of perplexity on his countenance, while Ongoloo assumed an attitude of defence. Suddenly a beaming smile overspread Zeppa's face. We have already said that his smile had fascination in it. The effect on the savage was to paralyse him for the moment.
Wapoota performed his part nobly and without being captured, for he did not agree with Ongoloo as to the unimportance of his own death! At the unexpected outcry in the rear the Raturans halted, and held a hasty council of war. "Let us go back and fight them," said one. "No use, they are evil spirits not men," said another. Some agreed with the former some with the latter.
Zeppa advanced, took Ongoloo's face between both hands, and, placing his nose against that of the chief, gently rubbed it. For the benefit of the ignorant, we may explain that this is the usual salutation of friendship among some of the South Sea Islanders. Ongoloo returned the rub, and dropped his club. He was obviously glad of this peaceful termination to the rencontre.
If we become Christians, we must open our arms wide, and take the Raturans to our hearts!" This was a climax, as Ongoloo evidently intended, for he paused a long time, while loud expressions of dissent and defiance were heard on all sides, though it was not easy to see who uttered them. "Now, warriors, women and children, here I am a Christian who will join me?"
"We will not let a living man touch our shore," said Ongoloo to Wapoota, who chanced to be near his leader, when he marshalled his men. "Oh! yes, we will, chief," replied the brown humorist. "We will let some of them touch it, and then we will take them up carefully, and have them baked. A long-pig supper will do us good. The rest of them we will drive back to their big canoe."
On reaching the cave they found Wapoota arranging the supper-table if we may so express it for he had been in the habit of doing this for some time past, about sunset, at which time his protector had invariably returned home alas! it was a poor home! To say that Wapoota was transfixed, or petrified, on beholding Ongoloo, would not convey the full idea of his condition.
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