Wednesday the Tenth by Grant Allen

At Tanaki meanwhile, as we afterwards learned by inquiry among the islanders, things had been going on with the unhappy missionary very much as our worst fears had led us to expect. Though I wasn't there at the time to see for myself, I got to know what happened a little later almost as well as if I'd been on the spot; so I shall take the liberty once more -- not being one of these book-making chaps -- of telling my story my own way, and explaining how matters went in rough sailor fashion, without trying to let you know in detail how we found it all out till I come to explain the upshot of our present adventures.

Well, on the night when Martin and Jack stole away from the hut and got clear off on their venturesome journey in the mission boat, their father and mother, with little Calvin, who was eight years old, and Miriam, who was a pretty wee lassie of three, were heavily guarded by half a dozen desperate and drunken savages in the temple-tomb of the deceased Taranaka. It was a thatched native grass-house, with a bare mud floor, and a rough altar-slab raised high on the threshold, which covered the remains of the blood-thirsty old chieftain -- the man who in his early youth had seen "Capitaney Cook" when he discovered the islands. The Melanesian natives, I ought to tell you, regard their dead ancestors as a sort of gods or guardian spirits, and frequently offer up food and drink at their graves as presents to appease them.