A Noble Sea Game. 
149 
and consoled them in their sorrow. So we all 
loved Ioane, the teacher, and Eline, his pretty 
young wife, and his two jolly little muddy 
brown infants ; for there was no other native 
missionary like him in all the wide Pacific. 
The simple service was soon over, and then 
there was a great scurrying to and fro among 
the thatched houses, and presently in tv/os and 
threes the young people appeared, hurrying 
down to the beach and shouting loudly to the 
white man to follow. A strong breeze had 
sprung up during the night, and the long 
rolling billows, which had sped waveringly 
along for, perhaps, a thousand miles from 
beyond the western sea-rim, were sweeping 
now in quick succession over the wide flat 
stretch of reef that stood out from the northern 
end of the island like a huge table. Two hun¬ 
dred yards in width from the steep-to face it pre¬ 
sented to the sea, it ceased, almost as abruptly as 
it began, in a bed of pure white sand, six feet 
below the surface of the water ; and this sandy 
bottom continued all the way from the inner 
edge of the reef to the line of coco-palms 
fringing the island beach. At low tide, when 
the ever-restless rollers dashed vainly against 
