s meshes
flickered and darted over him, working hard, but keeping silence so
as not to excite him from sleep. Cohorts of yellow ants disputed him
against cohorts of purple ants, the two kinds slaying one another
in thousands. The battle was undecided when suddenly, with no such
warning as it gives in some parts of the world, the sun blazed up over
the horizon, turning night into day, and the insects vanished back
into their camps.

The white man ground his knuckles into the corners of his eyes,
emitting that snore final and querulous of a middle-aged man awakened
rudely. With a gesture brusque but flaccid he plucked aside the net
and peered around. The bales of cotton cloth, the beads, the brass
wire, the bottles of rum, had not been spirited away in the night. So
far so good. The faithful servant of his employers was now at liberty
to care for his own interests. He regarded himself, passing his hands
over his skin.

"Hi! Mahamo!" he shouted. "I've been eaten up."

The islander, with one sinuous motion, sprang from the ground, through
the mouth of the hut. Then, after a glance, he threw high his hands in
thanks to such good and evil spirits as had charge of his concerns. In
a tone half of reproach, half of apology, he murmured--

"You white men sometimes say strange things that deceive the heart."

"Reach me that ammonia bottle, d'you hear?" answered the white man.
"This is a pretty place you've brought me to!" He took a draught.
"Christmas Day, too! Of all the ---- But I suppose it seems all right
to you, you funny blackamoor, to be here on Christmas Day?"

"We are here on the day appointed, Mr. Williams. It is a feast-day of
your people?"

Mr. Williams had lain back, with closed eyes, on his mat. Nostalgia
was doing duty to him for imagination. He was wafted to a bedroom in
Marylebone, where in honour of the Day he lay late dozing, with great
contentment; outside, a slush of snow in the street, the sound of
church-bells; from below a savour of especial cookery. "Yes," he said,
"it's a feast-day of my people."

"Of mine also," said the islander humbly.

"Is it though? But they'll do business first?"

"They must first do that."

"And they'll bring their ivory with them?"

"Every man will bring ivory," answered the islander, with a smile
gleaming and wide.

"How soon'll they be here?"

"Has not the sun risen? They are on their way."

"Well, I hope they'll hurry. The sooner we're off this cursed island