“Hi!  Mahamo!” he shouted.  “I’ve been eaten up.”

The islander, with one sinuous motion, sprang from the ground, through the mouth of the hut.  Then, after a glance, he threw high his hands in thanks to such good and evil spirits as had charge of his concerns.  In a tone half of reproach, half of apology, he murmured—­

“You white men sometimes say strange things that deceive the heart.”

“Reach me that ammonia bottle, d’you hear?” answered the white man.  “This is a pretty place you’ve brought me to!” He took a draught.  “Christmas Day, too!  Of all the ——­ But I suppose it seems all right to you, you funny blackamoor, to be here on Christmas Day?”

“We are here on the day appointed, Mr. Williams.  It is a feast-day of your people?”

Mr. Williams had lain back, with closed eyes, on his mat.  Nostalgia was doing duty to him for imagination.  He was wafted to a bedroom in Marylebone, where in honour of the Day he lay late dozing, with great contentment; outside, a slush of snow in the street, the sound of church-bells; from below a savour of especial cookery.  “Yes,” he said, “it’s a feast-day of my people.”

“Of mine also,” said the islander humbly.

“Is it though?  But they’ll do business first?”

“They must first do that.”

“And they’ll bring their ivory with them?”

“Every man will bring ivory,” answered the islander, with a smile gleaming and wide.

“How soon’ll they be here?”

“Has not the sun risen?  They are on their way.”

“Well, I hope they’ll hurry.  The sooner we’re off this cursed island of yours the better.  Take all those things out,” Mr. Williams added, pointing to the merchandise, “and arrange them—­neatly, mind you!”

In certain circumstances it is right that a man be humoured in trifles.  Mahamo, having borne out the merchandise, arranged it very neatly.

While Mr. Williams made his toilet, the sun and the forest, careless of the doings of white and black men alike, waged their warfare implacable and daily.  The forest from its inmost depths sent forth perpetually its legions of shadows that fell dead in the instant of exposure to the enemy whose rays heroic and absurd its outposts annihilated.  There came from those inilluminable depths the equable rumour of myriads of winged things and crawling things newly roused to the task of killing and being killed.  Thence detached itself, little by little, an insidious sound of a drum beaten.  This sound drew more near.

Mr. Williams, issuing from the hut, heard it, and stood gaping towards it.

“Is that them?” he asked.

“That is they,” the islander murmured, moving away towards the edge of the forest.

Sounds of chanting were a now audible accompaniment to the drum.

“What’s that they’re singing?” asked Mr. Williams.

“They sing of their business,” said Mahamo.