The slopes and knolls¹ and palm-fringed cliffs of Ratinga were tipped with gold by the western sun one evening as he declined towards his bed in the Pacific, when Marie Zeppa wandered with Betsy Waroonga and her brown little daughter Zariffa towards the strip of bright sand in front of the village.  
The two matrons, besides being filled with somewhat similar anxieties as to absent ones, were naturally sympathetic, and frequently sought each other’s company. The lively Anglo-French woman, whose vivacity² was not altogether subdued³ even by the dark cloud that hung over her husband’s fate, took special pleasure in the sedate⁴, earnest temperament⁵ of her native missionary⁶ friend, whose difficulty in understanding a joke, coupled with her inability to control her laughter when, after painful explanation, she did manage to comprehend one, was a source of much interest—an under-current, as it were, of quiet amusement.
 
“Betsy,” said Marie, as they walked slowly along, their naked feet just laved by the rippling⁷ sea, “why do you persist in wearing that absurd bonnet⁸? If you would only let me cut four inches off the crown and six off the front, it would be much more becoming. Do let me, there’s a dear. You know I was accustomed to cutting and shaping when in England.”
 
“But what for the use?” asked Betsy, turning her large brown eyes solemnly on her companion. “It no seems too big to me. Besides, when brudder Gubbins give him to me he—”
 
“Who is brudder Gubbins?” asked Marie, with a look of smiling surprise.
 
“Oh! you know. The min’ster—Gubbins—what come to the mission-station just afore me an’ Waroonga left for Ratinga.”
 
“Oh! I see; the Reverend Mr Gubbins—well, what did he say about the bonnet?”
 
“W’at did he say? ah! he say much mor’n I kin⁹ remember, an’ he look at the bonnet with’s head a one side—so sad an’ pitiful like. ‘Ah! Betsy Waroonga,’ ses he, ‘this just the thing for you. Put it on an’ take it to Ratinga, it’ll press the natives there.’”
 
“Impress them, you mean, Betsy.”
 
“Well, p’raps it was that. Anyhow I put it on, an’ he looked at me so earnest an’ ses with a sigh, ‘Betsy,’ ses he, ‘it minds me o’ my grandmother, an’ she was a good old soul—brought me up, Betsy, she did. Wear it for her sake an’ mine. I make a present of it to you.’”
 
“Ah! Betsy,” said Marie, “the Reverend Gubbins must be a wag, I suspect.”
 
“W’at’s a wag, Marie?”
 
“Don’t you know what a wag is?”
 
“Oh, yis, I know. When leetil bird sit on a stone an shake hims tail, I’ve heerd you an Orley say it wag—but misser Gubbins he got no tail to wag—so how can he wag it?”
 
“I didn’t say he wagged it, Betsy,” returned Marie, repressing a laugh, “but—you’ll never get to understand what a wag means, so I won’t try to explain. Look! Zariffa is venturesome. You’d better call her back.”
 
Zariffa was indeed venturesome. Clad in a white flannel¹¹ petticoat and a miniature coal-scuttle, she was at that moment wading¹² so deep into the clear sea that she had to raise the little garment as high as her brown bosom¹³ to keep it out of the water; and with all her efforts she was unsuccessful, for, with that natural tendency of childhood to forget and neglect what cannot be seen, she had allowed the rear-part of the petticoat to drop into the sea.
 
This, however, occasioned little or no anxiety to Betsy Waroonga, for she was not an anxious mother; but when, raising her eyes a little higher, she beheld¹⁵ the tip of the back-fin of a shark describing lively circles in the water as if it had scented¹⁶ the tender morsel¹⁷ and were searching for it, her easy indifference¹⁸ vanished. She gave vent¹⁰ to a yell and made a bound that told eloquently¹⁹ of the savage²⁰ beneath the missionary, and, in another instant was up to the knees in the water with the coal-scuttle quivering violently. Seizing Zariffa, she squeezed her almost to the bursting point against her palpitating breast, while the shark headed seaward in bitter disappointment.
 
“Don’t go so deep agin, Ziffa,” said the mother, with a gasp²¹, as she set her little one down on the sand.
 
“No, musser,” said the obedient child; and she kept on the landward side of her parent thereafter with demonstrative care.
 
It may be remarked here that, owing to Waroonga’s love for, and admiration²² of, white men, Zariffa’s native tongue was English—broken, of course, to the pattern of her parents.
 
“It was a narrow escape, Betsy,” said Marie, solemnised by the incident.
 
“Yes, thank the Lord,” replied the other, continuing to gaze out to sea long after the cause of her alarm had disappeared.
 
“Oh! Marie,” she added, with a sigh, “when will the dear men come home?”
 
The question drove all the playful humour out of poor Marie, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
 
“When, indeed? Oh! Betsy, my man will never come. For Orley and the others I have little fear, but my Antonio—”
 
Poor Marie could say no more. Her nature was as quickly, though not as easily, provoked to deep sorrow as to gaiety. She covered her face with her hands.
 
As she did so the eyes of Betsy, which had for some time been fixed²³ on the horizon, opened to their widest, and her countenance²⁴ assumed a look so deeply solemn that it might have lent a touch of dignity even to the coal-scuttle bonnet, if it had not bordered just a little too closely on the ridiculous.
 
“Ho! Marie,” she exclaimed in a whisper so deep that her friend looked up with a startled air; “see! look—a sip²⁵.”
 
“A ship—where?” said the other, turning her eager gaze on the horizon. But she was not so quick-sighted as her companion, and when at length she succeeded in fixing the object with her eyes, she pronounced it a gull²⁶.
 
“No ’snot a gull—a sip,” retorted Betsy.
 
“Ask Zariffa. Her eyes are better than ours,” suggested Marie.
 
“Kumeer, Ziffa!” shouted Betsy.
 
Zariffa came, and, at the first glance, exclaimed. “A sip!”
 
The news spread in a moment for other and sharper eyes in the village had already observed the sail, and, ere long, the beach was crowded with natives.
 
By that time most of the Ratingans had adopted more or less, chiefly less, of European costume, so that the aspect of the crowd was anything but savage. It is true there were large proportions of brown humanity presented to view—such as arms, legs, necks, and chests, but these were picturesquely²⁷ interspersed²⁸ with striped cotton drawers, duck trousers, gay guernseys, red and blue flannel petticoats, numerous caps and straw hats as well as a few coal-scuttles—though none of the latter could match that of Betsy Waroonga for size and tremulosity.
 
But there were other signs of civilisation²⁹ there besides costume, for, in addition to the neat huts and gardens and whitewashed³⁰ church, there was a sound issuing from the pointed³¹ spire³² which was anything but suggestive of the South sea savage. It was the church bell—a small one, to be sure, but sweetly toned—which was being rung violently to call in all the fighting men from the woods and fields around, for at that time the Ratingans had to be prepared for the reception of foes³³ as well as friends.
 
A trusty chief had been placed in charge of the village by Tomeo before he left. This man now disposed his warriors³⁴ in commanding positions as they came trooping in, obedient to the call, and bade them keep out of sight and watch his signals from the beach.
 
But now let us see what vessel³⁵ it was that caused such commotion³⁶ in Ratinga.
 
She was a brig, with nothing particularly striking in her rig or appointments&mdas............