of ruthlessness about her action that made Simpson shudder
again--into a slab of meat, which she dropped on a plate, using a
callous thumb to disengage it from the tines. She covered it with
gravy and began to eat without further ceremony. The cripple followed
her example, slobbering the gravy noisily; some of it ran down his
chin. Neither of them paid any attention to Simpson.

He took the remaining plate from the table and stood irresolute with
it in his hand. He was hungry, but his essential Puritan
fastidiousness, combined with that pride of race which he knew to be
un-Christian, rendered him reluctant to dip into the common pot or to
eat on equal terms with these people. Besides, the sun and his amazing
introduction to the island had given him a raging headache: he could
not think clearly nor rid himself of the sinister suggestion of the
town, of the house, of its three occupants in particular.

The child touched a ringer to the hot lip of the pot, burned itself,
and began to cry.

"_Taise_," said the woman. Her voice was low but curt, and she did not
raise her eyes from her plate. The child, its finger in its mouth,
stopped crying at once.

Simpson shook himself; his normal point of view was beginning to
assert itself. He must not--must not hold himself superior to the
people he expected to convert; nothing, he insisted to himself, was to
be gained, and much might be lost by a refusal to meet the people "on
their own ground." Chance--he did not call it chance--had favoured him
incredibly thus far, and if he failed to follow the guidance that had
been vouchsafed him he would prove himself but an unworthy vessel. He
took up the long fork--it chattered against the pot as he seized
it--and, overcoming a momentary and inexplicable nausea, impaled the
first piece of meat that rolled to the surface. There were yams also
and a sort of dumpling made of manioc. When he had filled his plate he
rose and turned suddenly; the woman and the cripple had stopped eating
and were watching him. They did not take their eyes away at once but
gave him stare for stare. He sat down; without a word they began to
eat once again.

The stew was good, and once he had begun Simpson ate heartily of it.
The tacit devilry fell away from his surroundings as his hunger grew
less, and his companions became no more than a middle-aged negress in
a turban, a black boy pitifully deformed, and a beautiful child. He
looked at his watch--he had not th