The news spread like wildfire over the islands, and from all
directions came the natives crying in multitudes:

"Aue,[21] Williamu, Aue, Tama!" (Alas, Williams, Alas, our Father!)

And the chief Malietoa,[22] coming into the presence of Mrs. Williams,
cried:

"Alas, Williamu, Williamu, our father, our father! He has turned his
face from us! We shall never see him more! He that brought us the good
word of Salvation is gone! O cruel heathen, they know not what they
did! How great a man they have destroyed!"

John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown
men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach
of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our
slumbering camps:

"The daybreak call,
Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift
to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!"[23]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: A-oo-ay.]

[Footnote 22: M[)a]-lee-ay-to-[)a].]

[Footnote 23: Walt Whitman.]