coiled down as still almost
as if dead. He would lie in that way, now, they told me, for days.

It was while I stood watching the snake that Ahmeya came through
the square, leading her boy by the hand. The apartments of the royal
wives were built around this inner yard. This was the first time I
had seen the heir to the throne. He was a handsome boy, and looked
like his mother. Ahmeya was tall, for a native woman, and carried
herself with a dignity which showed that she felt the honor of her
position. Mateo had told me that she had a decided will of her own,
and, so the palace gossips said, ruled the establishment, and her
associate sultanas, with an unbending hand.

It was not very long after I had seen the green devil eat that
Mateo told me there had been another wedding at the palace. Mateo
was an indefatigable news-gatherer, and an incorrigible gossip. As
the society papers would have expressed it, this wedding had been "a
very quiet affair." The Sultan had happened to see a Visayan girl of
uncommon beauty, on one of the smaller islands, one day, had bought
her of her father for two water buffalos, and had installed her at
the palace as wife number fifteen.

For the time being the new-comer was said to be the royal favorite,
a condition of affairs which caused the other fourteen wives as little
concern as their objections, if they had expressed any, would probably
have caused their royal husband. So far as Ahmeya was concerned,
she never minded a little thing like that, but included the last
arrival in the same indifferent toleration which she had extended to
her predecessors.

I saw the new wife only once.--I mean,--yes I mean that.--I saw her as
the king's wife only once. She was a handsome woman, with a certain
insolent disdain of those about her which indicated that she knew
her own charms, and perhaps counted too much on their being permanent.

That summer my work took me away from the island. I went to Manila,
and eventually to America. When I finally returned to Culion a year
had passed.

I had engaged Mateo, before I left, to look out for such property
as I left behind, and had retained my old house. I found him waiting
for me, and with everything in good order. That is one good thing to
be said about the natives. An imagined wrong or insult may rankle in
their minds for months, until they have a chance to stab you in the
back. They will lie to you at times with the most unblushing nerve,
often when