The islanders, men, women, and children, ran down the beach to see the newcomers and soon had set apart huts for them and made them welcome. Elikana gathered them round him, and began to tell them about the love of Jesus and the protecting care of God the Father. It all seemed strange to them, but quickly they learned from him, and he began to teach them and their children. This went on for four months, till one day Elikana said: "I must go away and learn more so that I can teach you more." But they had become so fond of Elikana that they said: "No, you must not leave us," and it was only when he promised to come back with another teacher to help him, that they could bring themselves to part with him. So when a ship came to the island to trade in cocoa-nuts Elikana went aboard and sailed to Samoa to the London Missionary Society's training college there at Malua. * * * * * "A ship! A ship!" The cry was taken up through the island, and the people running down the beach saw a large sailing vessel. Boats put down and sculls flashed as sailors pulled swiftly to the shore. They landed and the people gathered round to see and to hear what they would say. "Come onto our ship," said these men, who had sailed there from Peru, "and we will show you how you can be rich with many knives and much calico." But the islanders shook their heads and said they would stay where they were. Then a wicked white man named Tom Rose, who lived on the island and knew how much the people were looking forward to the day when Elikana would come back to teach them, went to the traders and whispered what he knew to them. So the Peruvian traders, with craft shining in their eyes, turned again to the islanders and said: "If you will come with us, we will take you where you will be taught all that men can know about God." At this the islanders broke out into glad cries and speaking to one another said: "Let us go and learn these things." The day came for sailing, and as the sun rose, hundreds of brown feet were running to the beach, children dancing with excitement, women saying "Goodbye" to their husbands--men, who for the first time in all their lives were to leave their tiny islet for the wonderful world beyond the ocean. So two hundred of them went on board. The sails were hoisted and they went away never to return; sailed away not to learn of Jesus, but to the sting of the lash and the shattering bullet, the bondage of the plantations, and to death at the hands of those merciless beasts of prey, the Peruvian slavers. * * * * * Years passed and a little fifty-ton trading vessel came to anchor outside the reef. One man and then another and another got down into the little boat and pulled for the shore. Elikana had returned. The women and children ran down to meet him--but few men were there, for nearly all had gone.