corner, dormant but not dead, we have all the one touch
of nature: an infant passion for the sand and blood of the arena. So I
brought to an end my first and last experience of the joys of the
millionaire, and departed amid silent awe. Nowhere else can I expect to
stir the depths of human nature by an offer of five pounds; nowhere
else, even at the expense of millions, could I hope to see the evil of
riches stand so legibly exposed. Of all the bystanders, none but the
king's sister retained any memory of the gravity and danger of the thing
in hand. Their eyes glowed, the girl beat her breast, in senseless
animal excitement. Nothing was offered them; they stood neither to gain
nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of these great sums Satan
possessed them.

From this singular interview I went straight to the palace; found the
king; confessed what I had been doing; begged him, in my name, to
compliment Terutak' on his virtue, and to have a similar box made for me
against the return of the schooner. Tembinok', Rubam, and one of the
Daily Papers--him we used to call "the Facetiae Column"--laboured for a
while of some idea, which was at last intelligibly delivered. They
feared I thought the box would cure me; whereas, without the wizard, it
was useless; and when I was threatened with another cold I should do
better to rely on pain-killer. I explained I merely wished to keep it in
my "outch" as a thing made in Apemama; and these honest men were much
relieved.

Late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle to windward, was aware
of singing in the bush. Nothing is more common in that hour and place
than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter swinging high overhead,
beholding below him the narrow ribbon of the isle, the surrounding field
of ocean, and the fires of the sunset. But this was of a graver
character, and seemed to proceed from the ground-level. Advancing a
little in the thicket, Mrs. Stevenson saw a clear space, a fine mat
spread in the midst, and on the mat a wreath of white flowers and one of
the devil-work boxes. A woman--whom we guess to have been Mrs.
Terutak'--sat in front, now drooping over the box like a mother over a
cradle, now lifting her face and directing her song to heaven. A passing
toddy-cutter told my wife that she was praying. Probably she did not so
much pray as deprecate; and perhaps even the ceremony was one of
disenchantment. For the box was already doomed; it was to pass from its
green me