"You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will not change me. I am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha." And with that he threw down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs. Some of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others--even some of the newly converted Christians--hid in the bush and peered through the leaves to see what would happen. Papeiha lit a fire; the logs were thrown on; the first Rarotongan idol was burned. "You will die," cried the priests of the fallen god. But to show that the god was just a log of wood, the teachers took a bunch of bananas, placed them on the ashes where the fire had died down, and roasted them. Then they sat down and ate the bananas. The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead, but nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether, after all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they had got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them in enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark background of trees. Those bonfires could be seen far out across the Pacific Ocean, like a beacon light. To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: P[)a]-pay-ee-h[)a].] [Footnote 17: Tay-ee-ay: ta-oo-a: fay-noo-[)a]: nay-ee.] [Footnote 18: Va-hee-nay-ee-n[=o].] [Footnote 19: M[)a]-kay-[)a].] [Footnote 20: T[)a]-p[=a]-ee-roo.] CHAPTER VII THE DAYBREAK CALL _John Williams_ (Date of Incident, 1839) Two men leaned on the rail of the brig _Camden_ as she swept slowly along the southern side of the Island of Erromanga in the Western Pacific. A steady breeze filled her sails. The sea heaved in long, silky billows. The red glow of the rising sun was changing to the full, clear light of morning. The men, as they talked, scanned the coast-line closely. There was the grey, stone-covered beach, and, behind the beach, the dense bush and the waving fronds of palms. Behind the palms rose the volcanic hills of the island. The elder man straightened himself and looked keenly to the bay from which a canoe was swiftly gliding.