ON THE ISLAND OF MALAITA 209 
day studying God’s word and holding meetings with the 
people in the neighborhood. 
“On the fatal morning we went to the place where Mr. 
Bell, the government district officer, was in his boat at an- 
chor, as we desired to apply for a lease of some land at Uru 
for mission purposes. We lodged our application, and then 
went back to the cutter to give some of the natives, who 
were suffering from yaws, injections of neosalvarsan. 
“IT had just given one of the men an injection and was 
cleaning the syringe, when it fell to pieces. I could not 
understand this, as it was a new syringe, and as I was only 
cleaning it there was little pressure. Without a syringe, 
however, there was nothing more that I could do for the 
natives at the place, and so we pulled up anchor and went 
on our way, intending to investigate a call for a missionary 
that had come from people on the opposite side of the bay. 
As we were leaving the place, we observed that a large 
number of bush people were coming in along the trails to 
pay their taxes. This did not seem unusual to me, as I 
had seen such gatherings before, and did not attach to it 
any special significance. 
“We sailed directly across the bay and anchored, and then 
walked for about an hour to the village from which the call 
had come. The people there were pleased to see us, and 
we were pleased to find them already at work building a 
house for the expected missionary to occupy. After stay- 
ing with them for a while we bade them good-by, and began 
te return journey. 
“We had heard in the meanwhile that the bush people and 
the government party had been fighting, but as the bush is 
always full of rumors, we did not give credence to this. 
However, some of our boys met us on the road and 
told us that the two white men had been killed, and also 
many natives of the government party. A recruiter for 
native labor, who was anchored near the government boat, 
moved away to a place of safety when the fight started, and 
14 
