"Come on!" the Chief cried in Kanaka. "Kill all! Kill every one! They're taboo to our gods. Don't fear their gunboats. Queenie England won't trouble to protect a Scotchman!"
Then began a hideous orgy of wild lust and slaughter. The savages rushed on, drunk with blood and rum, and dragged out the wife and children of the other missionary, whom they brained upon the spot, before the terrified eyes of the trembling Macglashins. The trader Williams ran up just then, with his revolver in his hand, followed by two faithful black servants from a neighboring island; but the French skipper had been cunning enough there too. "Him a Welshman!" the savages cried. "Queenie England no care for him!" For indeed he happened to be born in Wales. And they shot him down as he came, before he could open fire upon them. Then they turned to massacre the Macglashins, the only remaining Europeans on the island.
But just at that moment a sudden idea seemed to strike the Chief. He cried out, "Stop!" The savages fell back and listened with eagerness to what was coming. Then the Chief shouted out again in Kanaka--"I have a thought. The gods have sent it to me. This is my thought. We have killed enough for tonight. Let us catch them alive and bind them. Next moon is the great feast of my father Taranaka. I have an idea--a divine idea. Let us keep them till that day, and then, in honor of the gods, let us roast them and eat them."
[Illustration: THE SAVAGES FELL BACK. Page 70]
The whole assembly answered with a wild shout of delighted assent--"Taranaka! Taranaka! Our great dead Chief! In honor of Taranaka, let us roast them and eat them."
So they rushed wildly on upon the defenseless white family, bound them in rude cords of native make, and carried them off in triumph to Taranaka's temple tomb in the palm-grove.
And that was as much as we could allow the boys to tell us at a time, of their strange adventures. We were afraid of overtaxing their strength at first, and tried to confine their attention as much as possible to tinned meats and sea-biscuit soaked in condensed milk; though I'm bound to admit that as soon as they began to recover appetite a bit, they addressed themselves steadily and seriously to their food, with true British pluck and perseverance. In spite of the terrors from which they had just escaped, they did the fullest justice to Serang-Palo's cookery.