As soon as I had made an end in proper style, I laid down my gun, stuck my knife between my teeth, walked right up to that tree, and began to climb.  I tell you my heart was like ice.  But presently, as I went up, I caught another glimpse of the thing, and that relieved me, for I thought it seemed like a box; and when I had got right up to it I near fell out of the tree with laughing.

A box it was, sure enough, and a candle-box at that, with the brand upon the side of it; and it had banjo strings stretched so as to sound when the wind blew.  I believe they call the thing a Tyrolean (3) harp, whatever that may mean.

“Well, Mr. Case,” said I, “you’ve frightened me once, but I defy you to frighten me again,” I says, and slipped down the tree, and set out again to find my enemy’s head office, which I guessed would not be far away.

The undergrowth was thick in this part; I couldn’t see before my nose, and must burst my way through by main force and ply the knife as I went, slicing the cords of the lianas and slashing down whole trees at a blow.  I call them trees for the bigness, but in truth they were just big weeds, and sappy to cut through like carrot.  From all this crowd and kind of vegetation, I was just thinking to myself, the place might have once been cleared, when I came on my nose over a pile of stones, and saw in a moment it was some kind of a work of man.  The Lord knows when it was made or when deserted, for this part of the island has lain undisturbed since long before the whites came.  A few steps beyond I hit into the path I had been always looking for.  It was narrow, but well beaten, and I saw that Case had plenty of disciples.  It seems, indeed, it was a piece of fashionable boldness to venture up here with the trader, and a young man scarce reckoned himself grown till he had got his breech tattooed, for one thing, and seen Case’s devils for another.  This is mighty like Kanakas; but, if you look at it another way, it’s mighty like white folks too.

A bit along the path I was brought to a clear stand, and had to rub my eyes.  There was a wall in front of me, the path passing it by a gap; it was tumbledown and plainly very old, but built of big stones very well laid; and there is no native alive to-day upon that island that could dream of such a piece of building.  Along all the top of it was a line of queer figures, idols or scarecrows, or what not.  They had carved and painted faces ugly to view, their eyes and teeth were of shell, their hair and their bright clothes blew in the wind, and some of them worked with the tugging.  There are islands up west where they make these kind of figures till to-day; but if ever they were made in this island, the practice and the very recollection of it are now long forgotten.  And the singular thing was that all these bogies were as fresh as toys out of a shop.

Then it came in my mind that Case had let out to me the first day that he was a good forger of island curiosities, a thing by which so many traders turn an honest penny.  And with that I saw the whole business, and how this display served the man a double purpose:  first of all, to season his curiosities, and then to frighten those that came to visit him.