As it happened, before so very long I did go to the mountain, not of my own will but because I was obliged.  It came about thus.  One night I asked Bastin how he was getting on with his missionary work.  He replied:  Very well indeed, but there was one great obstacle in his path, the idol in the Grove.  Were it not for this accursed image he believed that the whole island would become Christian.  I asked him to be more plain.  He explained that all his work was thwarted by this idol, since his converts declared that they did not dare to be baptised while it sat there in the Grove.  If they did, the spirit that was in it would bewitch them and perhaps steal out at night and murder them.

“The spirit being our friends the sorcerers,” I suggested.

“That’s it, Arbuthnot.  Do you know, I believe those devilish men sometimes offer human sacrifices to this satanic fetish, when there is a drought or anything of that sort.”

“I can quite believe it,” I answered, “but as they will scarcely remove their god and with it their own livelihood and authority, I am afraid that as we don’t want to be sacrificed, there is nothing to be done.”

At this moment I was called away.  As I went I heard Bastin muttering something about martyrs, but paid no attention.  Little did I guess what was going on in his pious but obstinate mind.  In effect it was this—­that if no one else would remove that idol he was quite ready to do it himself.

However, he was very cunning over that business, almost Jesuitical indeed.  Not one word did he breathe of his dark plans to me, and still less to Bickley.  He just went on with his teaching, lamenting from time to time the stumbling-block of the idol and expressing wonder as to how it might be circumvented by a change in the hearts of the islanders, or otherwise.  Sad as it is to record, in fact, dear old Bastin went as near to telling a fib in connection with this matter as I suppose he had ever done in his life.  It happened thus.  One day Bickley’s sharp eye caught sight of Bastin walking about with what looked like a bottle of whisky in his pocket.

“Hallo, old fellow,” he said, “has the self-denying ordinance broken down?  I didn’t know that you took pegs on the sly,” and he pointed to the bottle.

“If you are insinuating, Bickley, that I absorb spirits surreptitiously, you are more mistaken than usual, which is saying a good deal.  This bottle contains, not Scotch whisky but paraffin, although I admit that its label may have misled you, unintentionally, so far as I am concerned.”

“What are you going to do with the paraffin?” asked Bickley.

Bastin coloured through his tan and replied awkwardly: 

“Paraffin is very good to keep away mosquitoes if one can stand the smell of it upon one’s skin.  Not that I have brought it here with that sole object.  The truth is that I am anxious to experiment with a lamp of my own design made—­um—­of native wood,” and he departed in a hurry.