The next day the people of the tribe were very civil, as their way was.  They were elegant speakers, and they made beautiful poetry, and jested at meals, so that a missionary must have died laughing.  It was little enough Keola cared for their fine ways; all he saw was the white teeth shining in their mouths, and his gorge rose at the sight; and when they were done eating, he went and lay in the bush like a dead man.

The next day it was the same, and then his wife followed him.

“Keola,” she said, “if you do not eat, I tell you plainly you will be killed and cooked to-morrow.  Some of the old chiefs are murmuring already.  They think you are fallen sick and must lose flesh.”

With that Keola got to his feet, and anger burned in him.

“It is little I care one way or the other,” said he.  “I am between the devil and the deep sea.  Since die I must, let me die the quickest way; and since I must be eaten at the best of it, let me rather be eaten by hobgoblins than by men.  Farewell,” said he, and he left her standing, and walked to the sea-side of that island.

It was all bare in the strong sun; there was no sign of man, only the beach was trodden, and all about him as he went, the voices talked and whispered, and the little fires sprang up and burned down.  All tongues of the earth were spoken there; the French, the Dutch, the Russian, the Tamil, the Chinese.  Whatever land knew sorcery, there were some of its people whispering in Keola’s ear.  That beach was thick as a cried fair, yet no man seen; and as he walked he saw the shells vanish before him, and no man to pick them up.  I think the devil would have been afraid to be alone in such a company; but Keola was past fear and courted death.  When the fires sprang up, he charged for them like a bull.  Bodiless voices called to and fro; unseen hands poured sand upon the flames; and they were gone from the beach before he reached them.

“It is plain Kalamake is not here,” he thought, “or I must have been killed long since.”

With that he sat him down in the margin of the wood, for he was tired, and put his chin upon his hands.  The business before his eyes continued:  the beach babbled with voices, and the fires sprang up and sank, and the shells vanished and were renewed again even while he looked.

“It was a by-day when I was here before,” he thought, “for it was nothing to this.”

And his head was dizzy with the thought of these millions and millions of dollars, and all these hundreds and hundreds of persons culling them upon the beach and flying in the air higher and swifter than eagles.

“And to think how they have fooled me with their talk of mints,” says he, “and that money was made there, when it is clear that all the new coin in all the world is gathered on these sands!  But I will know better the next time!” said he.

And at last, he knew not very well how or when, sleep feel on Keola, and he forgot the island and all his sorrows.