Dr. Inglis told him that he must try for water elsewhere, till the rains came and cleansed the polluted stream; and that, meanwhile, instead of tea, we would drink from the cocoa-nut, as they had often done before. The lad was quite relieved. It not a little astonished us, however, to see that his mind regarded their killing and eating each other as a thing scarcely to be noticed, but that it was horrible that they should spoil the water! How much are even our deepest instincts the creatures of mere circumstances! I, if trained like him, would probably have felt like him. Next evening, as we sat talking about the people and the dark scenes around us, the quiet of the night was broken by a wild wailing cry from the villages around, long-continued and unearthly. We were informed that one of the wounded men, carried home from the battle, had just died; and that they had strangled his widow to death, that her spirit might accompany him to the other world, and be his servant there, as she had been here. Now their dead bodies were laid side by side, ready to be buried in the sea. Our hearts sank to think of all this happening within earshot, and that we knew it not! Every new scene, every fresh incident, set more clearly before us the benighted condition and shocking cruelties of these heathen people, and we longed to be able to speak to them of Jesus and the love of God. We eagerly tried to pick up every word of their language, that we might, in their own tongue, unfold to them the knowledge of the true God and the salvation from all these sins through Jesus Christ. Dr. Inglis and I, with the help of the Natives from Aneityum, having accomplished all that could be done for lack of lime and sawn wood to finish the new Mission House on Tanna, made an agreement with the Natives for knives, calico, and axes, to burn lime and prepare other things for our return. We then hastened back to Aneityum, that we might, if possible, get ready for settling on Tanna before the Rainy Season set in. That was rapidly approaching, and it brings with it discomfort and unhealth to Europeans throughout all these Pacific Isles. CHAPTER VI. _LIFE AND DEATH ON TANNA._ Our Island Home.—Learning the Language.—A Religion of Fear.—With or Without a God.—Ideas of the Invisible.—Gods and Demons.—My Companion Missionary.—Pioneers in the New Hebrides.—Missionaries of Aneityum.—The Lord’s Arrowroot.—Unhealthy Sites.—The Great Bereavement.—Memorial Tributes.—Selwyn and Patteson at a Tannese Grave.—Her Last Letter.—Last Words.—Presentiment and Mystery.