"
The ship sailed on till they heard ahead of them the beating of the
surf on the reef of Santa Cruz. Behind the silver line of the breakers
the waving fronds of her palms came into sight. They put _The Southern
Cross_ in, cast anchor, and let a boat down from her side. Into the
boat tumbled a British sailor named Pearce, a young twenty-year-old
Englishman named Atkin, and three brown South-Sea Island boys from the
missionary training college for native teachers on Norfolk Island,
and their leader, Bishop Patteson, the white man who, having faced the
clubs of savages on a score of islands, never flinched from walking
into peril again to lead them to know of "the best Man in the world,
Jesus Christ." These brown boys were young helpers of Bishop Patteson.
And one of them especially, Fisher Young, would have died for his
great white leader gladly. They were like father and son.
The reef, covered at mid-tide with curling waters mottled with the
foam of the broken waves, was alive with men; while the beach beyond
was black with crowds of the wild islanders who had come down to see
the strange visitors from the ship. The four men sculled the boat
on to the edge of the reef and then rested on their oars as Patteson
swung himself over the side into the cool water.
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