He walked for mile after mile up steep hills and down into valleys along the path; but nothing did he hear save the cry of a night bird. At last he had gone five miles, and was wondering whether he could ever find the sick man (for the long grass towered up on either side and all was still), when he heard a low moaning. Listening intently he found the direction of the sound, and then moved towards it. He found there, at the side of the path, a white man named Neville, nearly dead. He was moaning with the pain of the fever, yet unconscious. Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that rose 300 feet high. Again and again he was bound to rest, for the man on his shoulders was as heavy as Ruatoka himself. He tottered down the hill path, and at last, just as the first light of dawn was breaking over the eastern hills, Ruatoka staggered into his home, laid the sick man upon the only bed he had, and then himself laid down upon the floor, wearied almost to death. There he slept while his wife nursed and tended the fever-stricken Neville back to life. * * * * * Over a thousand years before that day Wilfrid[43] had brought life and joy to the starving Saxons of the South coast of England. A hundred years before that day white men, the great-great-grandchildren of those Saxons, had started out in _The Duff_ and, sailing across the world, had taken life and joy in the place of the terror of demons and the death by the club to the men of the Islands of the Seas. Now Ruatoka, the South Sea islander, having in his heart the same brave spirit of the Good Shepherd--that spirit of the Good Samaritan, of help and preparedness, of courage and of chivalry, had carried life and joy back to the North Sea islander, the Briton who had fallen by the roadside in Papua. Ruatoka was a brown Greatheart. It was with him as it must be with all brave sons who serve that great Captain, Jesus Christ: he wanted to be in the front of the battle. When the great Tamate was killed and eaten by the cannibals of Goaribari, Ruatoka wrote a letter to a missionary who lived and still lives in Papua. This is the end of the letter: "Hear my wish. It is a great wish. The remainder of my strength I would spend in the place where Tamate was killed. In that village I would live. In that place where they killed men, Jesus Christ's name and His word I would teach to the people that they may become Jesus' children. My wish is just this. You know it. I have spoken. RUATOKA." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 42: James Chalmers: see Chapter XIII.] [Footnote 43: See Chapter II.] Book Three: THE PATHFINDERS OF AFRICA CHAPTER XV THE MAN WHO WOULD GO ON