Like King David of old, in his heaviness of heart he thought upon God, and determined to join the _lotu_; and on the 30th of April he gave orders that the great drums (which ten days previously had been beaten to call the people to the temples for a great cannibal feast) should now sound to summon them to assemble in the great strangers’ house to worship the true God. About three hundred there met, and the Vuni Valu, with all his wives, children, and other relatives, knelt together in solemn adoration of the Christian’s God. Mr Calvert and Mr Waterhouse conducted the service. This was a day for which they had long worked and prayed, hoping against hope—a day ever to be remembered as one of the most important in the annals of Fiji. But the outward state of matters was very unsatisfactory. Thakombau’s implacable foe, the chief of Rewa, had acquired great power, and announced his intention of utterly destroying Bau and its king and people, whom he would soon eat; and proclaimed that he defied their new God Jehovah to save them. At the same time he had the courtesy to send a message to Mr Waterhouse to beg him and his family to leave the town before he set it on fire. At such a time it certainly needed both faith and courage to stick to his post, but both Mr Waterhouse and his devoted wife determined to hold their ground, greatly to the satisfaction of the king. Then followed a period of dire anxiety. There were fears within the isle, and fightings without—fears of treachery from hostile tribes living even on the little isle itself. But at the darkest hour came deliverance. The King of Rewa died of dysentery. His chiefs received Thakombau’s overtures of peace favourably. King George of Tonga came to Fiji, and somehow, unintentionally, drifted into the general war and helped to bring it to a speedy end. Seventy towns returned to their allegiance to Bau, and great was the wonder excited by the king’s clemency; his whole aim being to secure a lasting peace, and to induce all concerned to attend to the cultivation of the land and the interests of trade. All this time he had been carefully studying the doctrines of the faith he professed; but in his case, as in many others, it was deemed desirable to defer his baptism for a considerable period, till his instructors were convinced of his being thoroughly in earnest. It is a point on which the mission has always insisted strongly, that every convert should continue for a long period on probation, and receive careful individual training before being admitted to baptism. It was not till January 1857 that, having dismissed all his wives except one, Thakombau was publicly married to Audi Lytia, and they were baptised together.