blaze soon sparkled, and upon the walls hung various
implements, hides, and a store of dried fruits of various novel kinds.
My host, when he had somewhat disdainfully watched me wash in a rill of
water close by, suggested supper, and I agreed with heartiest good will.

"Nothing wonderful! Oh, Mr. Blue-coat!" he said, prancing about as he
made his hospitable arrangements. "No fine meat or scented wine to
unlock, one by one, all the doors of paradise, such as I have heard
they have in lands beyond the sea; but fare good enough for plain men
who eat but to live. So! reach me down yonder bunch of yellow aru
fruit, and don't upset that calabash, for all my funniest stories lurk
at the bottom of it."

I did as he bid, and soon we were squatting by the fire toasting arus
on pointed sticks, the doorway closed with a wattle hurdle, and the
black and gold firelight filling the hut with fantastic shadows. Then
when the banana-like fruit was ready, the man fetched from a recess a
loaf of bread savoured with the dust of dried and pounded fish, put the
foresaid calabash of strong ale to warm, and down we sat to supper with
real woodman appetites. Seldom have I enjoyed a meal so much, and when
we had finished the fruit and the wheat cake my guide snatched up the
great gourd of ale, and putting it to his lips called out:

"Here's to you, stranger; here's to your country; here's to your girl,
if you have one, and death to your enemies!" Then he drank deep and
long, and, passed the stuff to me.

"Here's to you, bully host, and the missus, and the children, if there
are any, and more power to your elbow!"--the which gratified him
greatly, though probably he had small idea of my meaning.

And right merry we were that evening. The host was a jolly good
fellow, and his ale, with a pleasant savour of mint in it, was the
heartiest drink I ever set lips to. We talked and laughed till the
very jackals yapped in sympathy outside. And when he had told a score
of wonderful wood stories as pungent of the life of these fairy forests
as the aromatic scent of his bark-heaps outside, as iridescent with the
colours of another world as the rainbow bubbles riding down his starlit
rill, I took a turn, and told him of the commonplaces of my world so
far away, whereat he laughed gloriously again. The greater the
commonplace the larger his joy. The humblest story, hardly calculated
to impress a griffin between watches on the main-deck, was a
ma