In the village they mended the gaps in the wall of stakes and thorny growth, and that done, watched and waited. The sun rode high, the children went to sleep.... The old chief—the fighting men, the women gathered around him—talked with high, ironic passion of days gone by in this island, in this island group. “They came, and our fathers’ fathers thought they were gods or men like gods! They had their wooden cross, and they planted it in the sand, side by side with their flag that says ‘Slay!’ They said that both were pleasing to the Great Spirit, and that they were his favoured children. They went away and our fathers’ fathers thought of them as gods and their country as the house of the Great Spirit.... They who had been children when they came grew to be men. There were men and men, then, in this land, men and men! Then the Spaniards came again. They told our fathers that they came from heavenly shores. They said that there, would our fathers only go with them in their many ships, they would find their dead again! Find them living and bright and always young. Find them they loved. Find their forefathers whom the Great Spirit loved and kept always about him. Find all they dreamed about. Find happiness.... They were weak of mind and they believed! They went into the Spaniards’ ships—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Next year the Spaniards came again and they brought what they said were messages from the red men who had gone last year to the heavenly shores. It was truly where the Great Spirit dwelt and where the dead lived again and all the red men who could should come.... And they whose islands these were were weak in judgment and listened and believed and went. The Spaniards carried them away in their ships—men and men and men and women and children. They loaded their ships with them as though they were nuts or fruit or fish they had caught, or the gold that they are always seeking. They carried them away, and next year they came for more. They took these too. And now this country was growing as it is to-day—trees where once there were people. But at last one escaped from the ‘heavenly shores,’ and after long toil and suffering reached these islands and told the truth. So at last when the Spaniards came the people fought them. But they were strong and the people were weak. And more and more trees grew where once there had been men! Now”—said the old chief—“I will tell you about those heavenly shores, for I, too, have been there. I will tell you of what we from this country do there, and what is done to us.” He told, circumstantially, a tale of fearful suffering.