Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/278

212 for her to take alone, with the risk of meeting^ Moteita and his followers, who often concealed themselves in those woods, and declared his suspicion that she intended to run away. She immediately fell on her knees, clasped her hands, and begged and intreated most earnestly, that he would not prevent her flight from the dominion of tyranny to the bosom of her rela- tions, and appealed most pathetically to his own feelings and aff'ectiona towards his mother, or whatever relatives he migii.t have in his own- country, and represented how hard and cruelly severe it would be for any one to prevent him? Aying to them, if it were otherwise in his power^. Being moved by the earnestness of her manner^ and the unfortunate circumstances of her situa- tion, he raised her up, and promised not to in- terfere in her escape, nor to divulge the matter tp any one, and gave her full liberty to proceed whichever w^ay she thought proper. .Finow had, for a long time past, entertained the idea of seizing upon several of the enemy's -^omen, who were in the habit of assembling at a certain part of the inlet, to gather shell-fish, and now, that bis wife had run away, he was more than ever encouraged to do this, by way of retaliation upon Toe Oomoo, for the deten- tion of her. The place where they procured this sort of fish„ was upon a shelf of rocks (about