the
answers. Sidney Colvin was in robust health and gone a journey; and we
should have a fair wind upon the morrow: that was the result of our
consultation, for which we paid a dollar. The next day dawned cloudless
and breathless; but I think Captain Reid placed a secret reliance on the
sibyl, for the schooner was got ready for sea. By eight the lagoon was
flawed with long cat's-paws, and the palms tossed and rustled; before ten
we were clear of the passage and skimming under all plain sail, with
bubbling scuppers. So we had the breeze, which was well worth a dollar in
itself; but the bulletin about my friend in England proved, some six
months later, when I got my mail, to have been groundless. Perhaps London
lies beyond the horizon of the island gods.

Tembinok', in his first dealings, showed himself sternly averse from
superstition: and had not the _Equator_ delayed, we might have left the
island and still supposed him to be an agnostic. It chanced one day,
however, that he came to our maniap', and found Mrs. Stevenson in the
midst of a game of patience. She explained the game as well as she was
able, and wound up jocularly by telling him this was her devil-work, and
if she won, the _Equator_ would arrive next day. Tembinok' must have
drawn a long breath; we were not so high-and-dry after all; he need no
longer dissemble, and he plunged at once into confessions. He made
devil-work every day, he told us, to know if ships were coming in; and
thereafter brought us regular reports of the results. It was surprising
how regularly he was wrong; but he had always an explanation ready.
There had been some schooner in the offing out of view; but either she
was not bound for Apemama, or had changed her course, or lay becalmed. I
used to regard the king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived
himself. I saw behind him all the fathers of the Church, all the
philosophers and men of science of the past; before him, all those that
are to come; himself in the midst; the whole visionary series bowed over
the same task of welding incongruities. To the end Tembinok' spoke
reluctantly of the island gods and their worship, and I learned but
little. Taburik is the god of thunder, and deals in wind and weather. A
while since there were wizards who could call him down in the form of
lightning. "My patha he tell me he see: you think he lie?"
Tienti--pronounced something like "Chench," and identified by his
majesty with the devil--sends an