response than that they would welcome martyrdom rather than relinquish
their labors, Umbaho was dispatched against them at the head of a
sufficient army, with instructions to treat them as enemies of Feejee
and of the unity of the Church.

But instead of slaughtering the missionaries, Umbaho was converted by
them. He renounced cannibalism, polygamy, and the sacred poison; he
denied Father Higgins. Accompanied by one of the Germans, he returned to
Feejee at the head of his army, bent on establishing the true Christian
faith.

"We must press a lot av min, an' beat um," responded the good Father,
when Heller informed him of the approach and purposes of the chief.
"Tell the faithful to give no quarter; tell um to desthroy ivery wan of
these schismatics; an' as for the Dutchman, burrn him at the stake, as
they used to do in the good owld times."

A great battle ensued; the adherents of Higginsism were defeated and
dispersed; the door of the temple opened to Umbaho and the German.
Father Higgins, by this time a helpless mass of fat, swaying perilously
on his unsteady platform, looked down upon them with terror through the
smoke of his altar.

"Sacrilegious wretch!" cried the German, God has put an end to thy mad
and selfish and wicked dominion."

"I wish I had niver been a biship!" screamed Father Higgins at the top
of his voice, as he rolled off the platform.

All the way from the Cannibal Islands he fell and tumbled and dropped,