Williams and his friends had gone into the bush, Harris in front, Cunningham next, and Williams last.  Suddenly Harris, who had disappeared in the bush, rushed out followed by yelling savages with clubs.  Harris rushed down the bank of the brook, stumbled, and fell in.  The water dashed over him, and the Erromangans, with the red fury of slaughter in their eyes, leapt in and beat in his skull with clubs.

Cunningham, with a native at his heels with lifted club, stooped, picked up a great pebble and hurled it full at the savage who was pursuing him.  The man was stunned.  Turning again, Cunningham leapt safely into the boat.

Williams, leaving the brook, had rushed down the beach to leap into the sea.  Reaching the edge of the water, where the beach falls steeply into the sea, he slipped on a pebble and fell into the water.

Cunningham, from the boat, hurled stones at the natives rushing at Williams, who lay prostrate in the water with a savage over him with uplifted club.  The club fell, and other Erromangans, rushing in, beat him with their clubs and shot their arrows into him until the ripples of the beach ran red with his blood.

The hero who had carried the flaming torch of peace on earth to the savages on scores of islands across the great Pacific Ocean was dead—­the first martyr of Erromanga.

* * * * *

When The Camden sailed back to Samoa, scores of canoes put out to meet her.  A brown Samoan guided the first canoe.

“Missi William,” he shouted.

“He is dead,” came the answer.

The man stood as though stunned.  He dropped his paddle; he drooped his head, and great tears welled out from the eyes of this dark islander and ran down his cheeks.

The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all directions came the natives crying in multitudes: 

“Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!” (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!)

And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams, cried: 

“Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father!  He has turned his face from us!  We shall never see him more!  He that brought us the good word of Salvation is gone!  O cruel heathen, they know not what they did!  How great a man they have destroyed!”

John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveille to our slumbering camps: 

“The daybreak call, Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 21:  A-oo-ay.]

[Footnote 22:  M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].]

[Footnote 23:  Walt Whitman.]

CHAPTER VIII