Hokosa kept his promise.  On the morrow of his first attendance there he was again to be seen in the chapel, and after the service was over he waited on Owen at his house and listened to his private teaching.  Day by day he appeared thus, till at length he became master of the whole doctrine of Christianity, and discovered that that which at first had struck him as childish and even monstrous, now presented itself to him in a new and very different light.  The conversion of Hokosa came upon him through the gate of reason, not as is usual among savages—­and some who are not savage—­by that of the emotions.  Given the position of a universe torn and groaning beneath the dual rule of Good and Evil, two powers of well-nigh equal potency, he found no great difficulty in accepting this tale of the self-sacrifice of the God of Good that He might wring the race He loved out of the conquering grasp of the god of Ill.  There was a simple majesty about this scheme of redemption which appealed to one side of his nature.  Indeed, Hokosa felt that under certain conditions and in a more limited fashion he would have been capable of attempting as much himself.

Once his reason was satisfied, the rest followed in a natural sequence.  Within three weeks from the hour of his first attendance at the chapel Hokosa was at heart a Christian.

He was a Christian, although as yet he did not confess it; but he was also the most miserable man among the nation of the Sons of Fire.  The iniquities of his past life had become abominable to him; but he had committed them in ignorance, and he understood that they were not beyond forgiveness.  Yet high above them all towered one colossal crime which, as he believed, could never be pardoned to him in this world or the next.  He was the treacherous murderer of the Messenger of God; he was in the very act of silencing the Voice that had proclaimed truth in the dark places of his soul and the dull ears of his countrymen.

The deed was done; no power on earth could save his victim.  Within a week from the day of eating that fatal fruit Owen began to sicken, then the dysentery had seized him which slowly but surely was wasting out his life.  Yet he, the murderer, was helpless, for with this form of the disease no medicine could cope.  With agony in his heart, an agony that was shared by thousands of the people, Hokosa watched the decrease of the white man’s strength, and reckoned the days that would elapse before the end.  Having such sin as thus upon his soul, though Owen entreated him earnestly, he would not permit himself to be baptised.  Twice he went near to consenting, but on each occasion an ominous and terrible incident drove him from the door of mercy.

Once, when the words “I will” were almost on his lips, a woman broke in upon their conference bearing a dying boy in her arms.

“Save him,” she implored, “save him, Messenger, for he is my only son!”

Owen looked at him and shook his head.