The desire to believe on the part of some of his people was very touching. One of them said to him: "I don't know how to pray properly, but I and my wife say, 'God make our hearts light--take away the darkness. We believe that You love us because You sent Jesus to become a man and die for us; but we can't understand it all. Make us fit to be baptised.'" Some, of course, were not so enlightened as that. After the kidnapping traders had been harrying the islands, one of the chiefs said that, if the bishop would only bring a man-of-war and get him vengeance on his adversaries, he would be exalted like his Father above. There was indeed serious cause for the anger of the natives. One of them related how he had been out to a vessel with his companions, and a white man had come down into the canoe and presently upset it, seizing him by the belt. Happily this broke, and he swam under the side of the canoe and finally got on shore, but the other three were killed--their heads were cut off and taken on board, and their bodies thrown to the sharks. The assailants were men-stealers, who killed ruthlessly that they might present heads to the chiefs. Five natives from the same island were also killed or carried off, and thus when the bishop visited them they were in a state of sullen wrath. On the 20th of September, 1871, Bishop Patteson came to Nukapu. The island is difficult of approach at low water, and the little ship, _The Southern Cross_, could not get close in. So the bishop went off to the shore in a boat and got into one of the canoes, leaving his four pupils to await his return. They saw him land, and he was then lost to sight. About half an hour later the natives in the canoes, without the least warning, began shooting their arrows at the poor fellows in the boat, and ere it could be taken out of bowshot one of them was pierced with six arrows, and two of the others were also wounded. They were full of fears about the bishop, and, notwithstanding the danger, determined to seek for him. They had no arms except one pistol which the mate possessed. As they made their way towards shore a canoe drifted out, and lying in it, wrapped in a native mat, was the body of Bishop Patteson. A sweet calm smile was on his face, a palm leaf was fastened upon his breast, and upon the body were five wounds--the exact number of the natives who had been kidnapped or killed. So the good bishop died for the misdeeds of others. The natives but followed their traditions in exacting blood for blood, and their poor dark minds could not distinguish between the good and the bad white men. Two of those who were with the bishop in the boat, and had received arrow wounds, died within a week, after much suffering. One of them, Mr. Atkins, writing of the occurrence on the day of the martyrdom, says:--