Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/423

Rh TriE TONGA ISLANDS. 357 der. That they had consequently come to a resolution of saving his life, seeing that his death would be a greater evil to his people than to himself, and of punishing him in another and perhaps more severe way, viz. by the death of his most dear and beloved daughter, who must therefore be inevitably taken from him : for as it had been decreed, beyond all re- vocation, that either he or his daughter must die, her life could not be saved without taking away his. As a sort of proof of this decree, he bade them remark that whilst Finow was at this time ill, his daughter was much better, and comparatively full of life and spirits, (which was actually the case.) To-morrow, he said, her father would be tolerably well, for the gods had not decreed his immediate death, but only a temporary illness, to impress on his mind a sense of their power, and then his daughter would relapse, and become as bad or worse than ever. The priest being now silent, the chiefs and matabooles left him, with a strong belief of the truths he had been telling them. When they arrived at Finow' s house they found him some- what better, but did not communicate what they had heard from his priest. This however was soon rumoured among the other chiefs and matabooles, in the king's cook-Jwuse, where