It was excellent, for both Marama and the priest wrung their hands and groaned.

Then I went on: "Meanwhile we have something to tell you.

We have entered the cave where you said no man might set a foot, and have seen him who sits within, the true god." (Here Bastin tried to interrupt, but was suppressed by Bickley.) They looked at each other in a frightened way and groaned more loudly than before.
"He sends you a message, which, as he told us of your approach, we came to the shore to deliver to you." "How can you say that ?" began Bastin, but was again violently suppressed by Bickley.
"It is that he, the real Oro, rejoices that the false Oro, whose face is copied from his face, has been destroyed.

It is that he commands you day by day to bring food in plenty and lay it upon the Rock of Offerings, not forgetting a supply of fresh fish from the sea, and with it all those things that are stored in the house wherein we, the strangers from the sea, deigned to dwell awhile until we left you because in your wickedness you wished to murder us." "And if we refuse--what then ?" asked the priest, speaking for the first time.
"Then Oro will send death and destruction upon you.

Then your food shall fail and you shall perish of sickness and want, and the Oromatuas, the spirits of the great dead, shall haunt you in your sleep, and Oro shall eat up your souls." At these horrible threats both of them uttered a kind of wail, after which, Marama asked: "And if we consent, what then, Friend-from-the-Sea ?" "Then, perchance," I answered, "in some day to come we may return to you, that I may give you of my wisdom and the Great Healer may cure your sick and the Bellower may lead you through his gate, and in his kindness make you to see with his eyes." This last clause of my ultimatum did not seem to appeal to the priest, who argued a while with Marama, though what he said we could not hear.
In the end he appeared to give way.