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Instantly she swept them off, and lo! there lay Zariffa safe and well, though somewhat confused by her rude awaking and her mother's weight. "You's keep up heart, missis," said the sympathetic Ebony, looking hastily into the room in passing; "we's sartin sure to find " He stopped.
"He's hoed out to walk," observed Zariffa with a light laugh; "awful fond o' walkin' since he got the 'ooden legs!" "What was you want with him?" asked Betsy, as they resumed their walk. "Want to ask 'bout the Bibil lesson for to-morrow. Some things me no can understan', an' Rosco great at the Bibil now." "Yes," murmured Betsy with a nod, "there's many things in the Bibil not easy to understand.
We can only add that Waroonga and Betsy returned home, that a stalwart son of Tomeo went in after years, to Sugar-loaf Island, and carried off Lippy as his bride, along with her mother; that a handsome son of Ongoloo took revenge by carrying Zariffa away from Ratinga, without her mother; that regular and frequent intercourse was set up between the two islands by means of a little schooner; that Ebony stuck to his master and mistress through thick and thin to a good old age; that Orlando went to England, studied medicine, and returned again to Ratinga with a fair daughter of that favoured land; that Wapoota's morals improved by degrees; that Buttchee became more reconciled to European dress as he grew older; and that the inhabitants of the two islands generally became wiser and happier though of course not perfect through the benign influence of that Gospel which teaches man to do to others as he would have others do to him.
It will be the first time in my life I have had a secret from my mother; but she must not know till till we return." That night there was great rejoicing in Ratinga, because of the recovery, if we may so call it, of Zariffa, and the visit of the British man-of-war.
She was hastening, one afternoon, to an outlying field to gather vegetables in company with Zariffa, who had by that time grown into a goodly-sized girl. The pace induced silence, also considerable agitation in both bonnets. When they had cleared the village, and reached Rosco's hut near the entrance to the palm-grove, they went up to the open door and looked in, but no one was there.
He was by nature a cook, but church-building occupied his leisure moments, and he prided himself upon being not only cleverer, but considerably blacker, than the islanders. "Now you keep out ob de road, leetil Za." This was addressed to Zariffa, who, by that time, could not only toddle but trowel, besides being able to swim like a duck.
"It's little you knows, stoopid feller," returned the native missionary's wife, while her coal-scuttle shook with imparted emotion; "Zariffa never dis'beyed me in hers life. She's lost. We must seek seek quick!"
The sympathetic negro became again anxious, and looked hastily under the chairs and tables for the lost one, while her mother opened and searched a corner cupboard that could not have held a child half her size. Then the pair became more and more distracted as each excited the other, and ran to the various outhouses shouting, "Zariffa!" anxiously, entreatingly, despairing.
Decency and propriety not being recognised, apparently, among infants, the brown baby who had been named Zariffa at baptism landed in what may be styled Adamite costume. Then Waroonga built himself a bamboo house, and set up a school.
The slopes and knolls and palm-fringed cliffs of Ratinga were tipped with gold by the western sun one evening as he declined towards his bed in the Pacific, when Marie Zeppa wandered with Betsy Waroonga and her brown little daughter Zariffa towards the strip of bright sand in front of the village.
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