Waiwai professed to be willing, but found it terribly hard to give up either of his wives. They had houses far apart from each other, for they quarrelled badly, as is usual in such cases. But both were excellent workers, both were very attentive to the wants of Waiwai, and he managed to keep on affectionate terms with both. After all the other men on the Island had, under the influence of Christianity, given up all their wives save one, Waiwai began to feel rather ashamed of being the conspicuous exception, or thought it prudent to pretend to be ashamed; and so he publicly scolded them both, ordering one or other to go and leave him, that he might be enabled to join the Church and be a Christian like the rest. But I learned privately that he did not wish either to go, and that he would shoot the one that dared to leave him. I remonstrated with him on his hypocrisy, warning him that God knew his heart. At last he said, that since neither of them would depart, he would leave them both and go to Tanna for a year, ordering one or other of them to get married during his absence. He did go, but on his return found both still awaiting him at their respective stations. He pretended to scold them very vigorously _in public_; but his duplicity was too open, and I again very solemnly rebuked him for double dealing, showing him that not even men were deceived by him, much less the all-seeing God. He frankly admitted his hypocrisy. He loved both; he did not want to part with either; and both were excellent workers! In process of time the younger of the two women bore him a beautiful baby boy, about which he was immensely uplifted; and a short while thereafter the elder woman died. At her grave the inveterate talking instinct of these Islanders asserted itself, and Waiwai made a speech to the assembled people in the following strain:— “O ye people of Aniwa, I was not willing to give up either of my wives for Jesus; but God has taken one from me and laid her there in the grave; and now I am called to be baptized, and to follow Jesus.” The two now regularly attended Church, and learned diligently at the Communicants’ Class. Both seemed to be very sincere, and Waiwai particularly showed a very gentle Christian spirit, and seemed to brood much upon the loss of family and people and tribe that had befallen him. His had been indeed a crushing discipline, and it was not yet complete. For, shortly before the Communion at which they were to be received into fellowship, his remaining wife became suddenly ill and died also. At her grave the old man wept very bitterly, and made another speech, but this time in tones of more intense reality than before, as if the iron had entered his very soul:—