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should thus hie him back to the company of his old acquaintance. There had been something disquieting, almost repulsive, in the calm way Lueli had given his former life the go-by. He would not like to think him lacking in natural affection. So he slept through the first night and dabbled through the first day without feeling any uneasiness; but on the second night he dreamed that Lueli had come back, and waking from his dream he ran out into the dell to see if it were a true one.
    There was no one there. He called—at first loudly, then he thought that Lueli might be hiding in the bushes afraid to come out lest he should be angry, so he called softly. Then he sat down in the verandah, for he knew there would be no more sleep for him that night, and began to worry, imagining all the dreadful things that might have befallen the boy, and reproaching himself bitterly for having allowed so much time to slip by before he awoke to the possibility of danger. Perhaps Lueli had been drowned. Mr. Fortune knew that he could swim like a fish, but he thought of drowning none the less. Perhaps running through the woods he had been caught like Absalom, or perhaps he had broken his leg and now, tired of calling for help, was lying snuffling with his face to the wet ground. Perhaps he had been carried off in a canoe by natives from some other island to serve as a slave or even as a meal.
    â€œThis is nonsense,” said Mr. Fortune. “The boy is probably somewhere in the village. I will go down as soon as it is day and inquire for him. Only when I know for certain that he is not there will I allow myself to worry.”
    For all that he continued to sit on the verandah, shredding his mind into surmises and waiting for the colour of day to come back to the whispering bushes and the black mountain. “In a little while,” he thought, “the moon will be in her first quarter and Lueli will not be able to see his way back if he comes by night.”
    As soon as he decently could (for he had his dignity as a missionary to keep up) he walked to the village and made inquiries. No one had seen Lueli; and what was worse, no one could be persuaded into making any suggestions as to his whereabouts or being in the least helpful. There was some sort of feast toward; people were hurrying from house to house with baskets and packages, and the air was thick with taboos. Mr. Fortune hung about for a while, but no one encouraged him to hang on them. Presently he returned to the hut, feeling that the Fanuans were all very heathen and hateful.
    Anxious and exasperated he spent the greater part of the day roaming about the woods, harking back every hour or so to the dell and the bathing-pool on the chance that Lueli might have reappeared. In the dell the shadows moved round from west to east and the tide brimmed and retrenched the pool; everything seemed to be in a conspiracy to go on as usual. By sunset he had tormented himself out of all self-control. His distress alternated with gusts of furious anger against his convert. Blow hot, blow cold, each contrary blast fanned his burning. At one moment he pictured Lueli struggling in the hands of marauding cannibals: in the next he was ready to cast him off (that is if he came back) as a runagate, and he began to prepare the scathing and renouncing remarks which should dismiss him. “Not that I am angry,” he assured himself. “I am not in the least angry. I am perfectly cool. But I see clearly that this is the end. I have been deceived in him, that is all. Of course I am sorry. And I shall miss him. He had pretty ways. He seemed so full of promise.”
    And instantly he was ravaged with pity for the best and most ill-prized convert the world had ever seen, and now, perhaps, the world saw him no longer. Even if he had run away and was still frolicking about at his own sweet will, there was every excuse to be made for him. He was young, he was ignorant, he had not a notion how much