The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea CannibalsPaton, John Gibson
Religion
The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals
Paton, John Gibson
Missions -- Vanuatu; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
We durst not choose the usual path along the beach, for there our
enemies would have quickly overtaken us. We entered the bush in the hope
of getting away unobserved. But a cousin of Miaki, evidently secreted to
watch us, sprang from behind a breadfruit tree, and swinging his
tomahawk, aimed it at my brow with a fiendish look. Avoiding it I turned
upon him and said in a firm bold voice, "If you dare to strike me, my
Jehovah God will punish you. He is here to defend me now!"
The man, trembling, looked all round as if to see the God who was my
defender, and the tomahawk gradually lowered at his side. With my eye
fixed upon him, I gradually moved backwards in the track of the
Teachers, and God mercifully restrained him from following me.
On reaching Nowar's village unobserved, we found the people
terror-stricken, crying, rushing about in despair at such a host of
armed savages approaching. I urged them to ply their axes, cut down
trees, and blockade the path. For a little they wrought vigorously at
this; but when, so far as eye could reach, they saw the shore covered
with armed men rushing on towards their village, they were overwhelmed
with fear, they threw away their axes and weapons of war, they cast
themselves headlong on the ground, and they knocked themselves against
the trees as if to court death before it came. They cried, "Missi, it's
of no use! We will all be killed and eaten to-day! See what a host are
coming against us."
Mothers snatched up little children and ran to hide in the bush. Others
waded as far as they could into the sea with them, holding their heads
above the water. The whole village collapsed in a condition of
indescribable terror. Nowar, lame with his wounded knee, got a canoe
turned upside-down and sat upon it where he could see the whole
approaching multitude. He said, "Missi, sit down beside me, and pray to
our Jehovah God, for if He does not send deliverance now, we are all
dead men. They will kill us all on your account, and that quickly. Pray,
and I will watch!"
They had gone to the Mission House and broken in the door, and finding
that we had escaped, they rushed on to Nowar's village. For, as they
began to plunder the bedroom, Nouka said, "Leave everything. Missi will
come back for his valuable things at night, and then we will get them
and him also!"
So he nailed up the door, and they all marched for Nowar's. We prayed as
one can only pray when in the jaws of death and on the brink of
Eternity. We felt that God was near, and omnipotent to do what seemed
best in His sight. When the savages were about three hundred yards off,
at the foot of a hill leading up to the village, Nowar touched my knee,
saying. "Missi, Jehovah is hearing! They are all standing still."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals — John Shaqi
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