’When I looked round after a minute, providentially indeed, for the boat was being pulled right into a small bay on the reef, and would have grounded, I saw Pearce lying between the thwarts, with the long shaft of an arrow in his chest, Edwin Nobbs with an arrow as it seemed in his left eye, many arrows flying close to us from many quarters.  Suddenly Fisher Young, pulling the stroke oar, gave a faint scream; he was shot through the left wrist.  Not a word was spoken, only my “Pull! port oars, pull on steadily.”  Once dear Edwin, with the fragment of the arrow sticking in his cheek, and the blood streaming down, called out, thinking even then more of me than of himself, “Look out, sir! close to you!” But indeed, on all sides they were close to us!

’How we any of us escaped I can’t tell; Fisher and Edward pulled on, Atkin had taken Pearce’s oar, Hunt pulled the fourth oar.  By God’s mercy no one else was hit, but the canoes chased us to the schooner.  In about twenty minutes we were on board, the people in the canoes round the vessel seeing the wounded paddled off as hard as they could, expecting of course that we should take vengeance on them.  But I don’t at all think that they were cognisant of the attack on shore.’

Several letters were written about this adventure; but I have thought it better to put them together, every word being Bishop Patteson’s own, because such a scene is better realised thus than by reading several descriptions for the most part identical.  What a scene it is!  The palm-clad island, the reef and sea full of the blacks, the storm of long arrows through the air, the four youths pulling bravely and steadily, and their Bishop standing over them, trying to ward off the blows with the rudder, and gazing with the deep eyes and steadfast smile that had caused many a weapon to fall harmless!

Pearce, it should be observed, was a volunteer for the Mission then on a trial-trip.

There was an even more trying time to come on board.  The Bishop continues:—­

’I drew out the arrow from Pearce’s chest:  a slanting wound not going in very deep, running under the skin, yet of apparently almost fatal character to an ignorant person like myself; Five inches were actually inside him.  The arrow struck him almost in the centre of the chest and in the direction of the right breast.  There was no effusion of blood, he breathed with great difficulty, groaning and making a kind of hollow sound, was perfectly composed, gave me directions and messages in case of his death.  I put on a poultice and bandage, and leaving him in charge of some one, went to Fisher.  The wrist was shot through, but the upper part of the arrow broken off and deep down; bleeding profuse, of which I was glad; I cut deeply, though fearing much to cut an artery, but I could not extract the wooden arrow-head.  At length getting a firm hold of the projecting point of the arrow on the lower side of his wrist, I pulled