“Well,” said he at last, “I am afraid you have a dangerous enemy.  This man Case is very clever and seems really wicked.  I must tell you I have had my eye on him for nearly a year, and have rather had the worst of our encounters.  About the time when the last representative of your firm ran so suddenly away, I had a letter from Namu, the native pastor, begging me to come to Falesa at my earliest convenience, as his flock were all ’adopting Catholic practices.’  I had great confidence in Namu; I fear it only shows how easily we are deceived.  No one could hear him preach and not be persuaded he was a man of extraordinary parts.  All our islanders easily acquire a kind of eloquence, and can roll out and illustrate, with a great deal of vigour and fancy, second-hand sermons; but Namu’s sermons are his own, and I cannot deny that I have found them means of grace.  Moreover, he has a keen curiosity in secular things, does not fear work, is clever at carpentering, and has made himself so much respected among the neighbouring pastors that we call him, in a jest which is half serious, the Bishop of the East.  In short, I was proud of the man; all the more puzzled by his letter, and took an occasion to come this way.  The morning before my arrival, Vigours had been sent on board the lion, and Namu was perfectly at his ease, apparently ashamed of his letter, and quite unwilling to explain it.  This, of course, I could not allow, and he ended by confessing that he had been much concerned to find his people using the sign of the cross, but since he had learned the explanation his mind was satisfied.  For Vigours had the Evil Eye, a common thing in a country of Europe called Italy, where men were often struck dead by that kind of devil, and it appeared the sign of the cross was a charm against its power.

“‘And I explain it, Misi,’ said Namu, ’in this way:  The country in Europe is a Popey country, and the devil of the Evil Eye may be a Catholic devil, or, at least, used to Catholic ways.  So then I reasoned thus:  if this sign of the cross were used in a Popey manner it would be sinful, but when it is used only to protect men from a devil, which is a thing harmless in itself, the sign too must be, as a bottle is neither good nor bad, harmless.  For the sign is neither good nor bad.  But if the bottle be full of gin, the gin is bad; and if the sign be made in idolatry bad, so is the idolatry.’  And, very like a native pastor, he had a text apposite about the casting out of devils.

“‘And who has been telling you about the Evil Eye?’ I asked.

“He admitted it was Case.  Now, I am afraid you will think me very narrow, Mr. Wiltshire, but I must tell you I was displeased, and cannot think a trader at all a good man to advise or have an influence upon my pastors.  And, besides, there had been some flying talk in the country of old Adams and his being poisoned, to which I had paid no great heed; but it came back to me at the moment.