manner. And then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again.

At that time I was praying like mad, I remember, over and over again:

'Lord help me through with it! Lord help me through with it!' It's

only fools who know nothing of dangers can afford to laugh at praying.



"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away

like that. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of

pressed me to take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was

clear to me they didn't take me for a British citizen, whatever

else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious

to own up to the old country.



"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with

savages, but these poor misguided, ignorant creatures took me

straight to their kind of joss place to present me to the blessed

old black stone there. By this time I was beginning to sort of realise

the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity

I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, 'wow-wow,' very long

on one note, and began waving my arms about a lot, and then very

slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on its side and

sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving-dresses ain't

much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're

a sight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting

on their joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their

minds and were hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you

I felt a bit relieved to see things turning out so well, in spite

of the weight on my shoulders and feet.



"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might

think when they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before

I went down, and without the helmet on--for they might have been

spying and hiding since over night--they would very likely take

a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about

that for hours, as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.



"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down.

At the cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting

Egyptian images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly

twelve hours, I should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd

hardly think what it meant in that heat and stink. I don't think

any of them dreamt of the man inside. I was just a wonderful leathery

great joss that had come up with luck out of the water. But the fatigue!

the heat! the beastly closeness! the mackintosheriness and the rum!

and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire on a kind of lava slab there

was before me, and brought in a lot of gory muck--the worst parts

of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it

all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but I understand now

how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smell of burnt

offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the stuff they'd

got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relieved



<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105 | 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 117 | 118 | 119 | 120 | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 130 | 131 | 132 | 133 | 134 | 135 | 136 | 137 | 138 | 139 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 145 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 150 | 151 | 152 | 153 | 154 | 155 | 156 | 157 | 158 | 159 | 160 | 161 |