ENEMIES 175 



with a Bible in his hand plunged through the surf, yelling, 

 "Missionary! Missionary!" 



They answered his yell, and others, following the first, came 

 swimming out. 



By extraordinary coincidence, the story runs, the brother 

 of the wrecked captain had been himself wrecked years before on 

 the same island. Saved from being butchered for an island holi- 

 day, by the ancient native tradition which occurred to the is- 

 landers in the very nick of time, that a god should some time 

 come out of the sea, he had taught them the elements of Chris- 

 tianity and thus had prepared them to receive, with spontaneous 

 kindness and generosity, this second parcel of shipwrecked sail- 

 ors. 



There is something about the story, as the Reverend Henry 

 T. Cheever tells it, that leads one to suspect him of being the 

 innocent victim of a sailor's yarn; but in telling of the welcome 

 that the natives of Rimatara gave the whale-ship Commodore 

 Preble, Captain Lafayette Ludlow, the good man's tale is told 

 at first hand and his simple honesty silences every doubt. To 

 the boat sent from the ship to the reef that shielded the island, 

 the natives with great good humour brought many pigs and 

 coconuts, and during the trading one of the sailors, having 

 learned the dialect during a stay at Tahiti, told them that the 

 ship carried a missionary as passenger from Hawaii. The next 

 day they sent on board a letter for Mr. Cheever, written in 

 the Rimatara tongue by a native teacher. The translation runs : 



Dear Friend and Father, 



May you be saved by the true God. This is our communication to you. 

 Come thou hither upon the shore, that we may see you in respect to all 

 the words of God which are right with you. It is our desire that you come 

 to-day. From Teutino and his brethren. 



With his visit to the island and with the feast the natives set 

 before him, Mr. Cheever was well pleased ; (his comments on the 

 native women are a reassurance that his eyes were not too asce- 

 tic to become aware of fem.ale charms.) And there is truth in his 

 conclusion that regardless of how carelessly the natives took 



