“My son, I was not ill until to-day, but now I know my days among you all are numbered, and before I die I want to talk to you of your future. It is my wish that you should remain always here, in this land of happiness.” “Why, father, I am not likely to leave here. There seems no possibility of such a thing.” “But still, Allen, the day may come when you will be given an opportunity to leave this heaven blessed land, and return to your own country. It is of that day I wish to speak. Think well, Allen, before you leave this paradise where all is happiness and contentment, where strife and contention are unknown, to return to the cold-hearted, calculating world to meet, you know not what evils, but remain here among a people who have their every want provided for by nature, thus relieving them of the drudgery of existence, where men live as God intended men should live; where love is love, not licentiousness; where each man is proud to claim his own children; where no woman blushes with shame when she beholds the fruits of her unhappy love; where the tender life of no unfortunate infant is taken that it may not be a living shame to the authors of its being. Here, in this land where money cannot buy man’s honesty or woman’s love. Here, my dear son, is to be found true happiness, and it is the dying request of your father that you live among this gentle, lovable people as your father has done.” The old man dropped his head upon his breast exhausted by his effort. “Do not think,” replied Allen, “that I shall ever want to go back to a false state of civilization. I learned to despise it long before I landed here and now that I have lived here so long and have learned to appreciate the honesty and truthfulness of these people, I do not wish to leave them. And then, is not my wife, whom I love more deeply each day, one of these people? No, father, I shall never leave this land of plenty, peace and quiet. No, I am too happy, as I now live, to desire any change.” Captain Thornton grew rapidly worse, and, ere the dawn of another day he had left the island, where he had passed so many peaceful years, for that unknown land beyond the grave. All day long could be heard the mournful wailing of the people of Nahua who had gathered around the house to mourn. The weird cries and the slow, measured beat of the tom toms that accompanied this peculiar chant was kept up all the day and night that Captain Thornton’s body lay unburied. The mourning was sincere, as the gentle old man had been loved as a father by the people of the island of Kaahlanai.