CHAPTER IV.
THE MISSIONARY--SUSPICIONS, SURPRISES, AND SURMISES.
Sandy Cove was a small settlement, inhabited partly by native converts to Christianity, and partly by a few European traders, who, having found that the place was in the usual track of South-Sea whalers, and frequently visited by that class of vessels as well as by other ships, had established several stores or trading-houses, and had taken up their permanent abode there.
The island was one of those the natives of which were early induced to agree to the introduction of the gospel.

At the time of which we write, it was in that transition state which renders the work of the missionary one of anxiety, toil, and extreme danger, as well as one of love.
But the Rev.Frederick Mason was a man eminently fitted to fill the post which he had selected as his sphere of labor.

Bold and manly in the extreme, he was more like a soldier in outward aspect than a missionary.
Yet the gentleness of the lamb dwelt in his breast and beamed in his eye; and to a naturally indomitable and enthusiastic disposition was added burning zeal in the cause of his beloved Master.
Six years previous to the opening of our tale, he had come to Sandy Cove with his wife and child, the latter a girl of six years of age at that time.

In one year death bereaved the missionary of his wife, and, about the same time, war broke out in the island between the chiefs who clung to the idolatrous rites and bloody practises peculiar to the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, and those chiefs who were inclined to favor Christianity.

This war continued to rage more or less violently for several years, frequently slumbering, sometimes breaking out with sudden violence, like the fitful eruptions of the still unextinct volcanoes in those distant, regions.
During all this period of bloodshed and alarms, the missionary stuck to his post.