of yours the better. Take all those things out," Mr. Williams added,
pointing to the merchandise, "and arrange them--neatly, mind you!"

In certain circumstances it is right that a man be humoured in
trifles. Mahamo, having borne out the merchandise, arranged it very
neatly.

While Mr. Williams made his toilet, the sun and the forest, careless
of the doings of white and black men alike, waged their warfare
implacable and daily. The forest from its inmost depths sent forth
perpetually its legions of shadows that fell dead in the instant
of exposure to the enemy whose rays heroic and absurd its outposts
annihilated. There came from those inilluminable depths the equable
rumour of myriads of winged things and crawling things newly roused to
the task of killing and being killed. Thence detached itself, little
by little, an insidious sound of a drum beaten. This sound drew more
near.

Mr. Williams, issuing from the hut, heard it, and stood gaping towards
it.

"Is that them?" he asked.

"That is they," the islander murmured, moving away towards the edge of
the forest.

Sounds of chanting were a now audible accompaniment to the drum.

"What's that they're singing?" asked Mr. Williams.

"They sing of their business," said Mahamo.

"Oh!" Mr. Williams was slightly shocked. "I'd have thought they'd be
singing of their feast."

"It is of their feast they sing."

It has been stated that Mr. Williams was not imaginative. But a few
years of life in climates alien and intemperate had disordered his
nerves. There was that in the rhythms of the hymn which made bristle
his flesh.

Suddenly, when they were very near, the voices ceased, leaving a
legacy of silence more sinister than themselves. And now the black
spaces between the trees were relieved by bits of white that were the
eyeballs and teeth of Mahamo's brethren.

"It was of their feast, it was of you, they sang," said Mahamo.

"Look here," cried Mr. Williams in his voice of a man not to be
trifled with. "Look here, if you've--"

He was silenced by sight of what seemed to be a young sapling sprung
up from the ground within a yard of him--a young sapling tremulous,
with a root of steel. Then a thread-like shadow skimmed the air, and
another spear came impinging the ground within an inch of his feet.

As he turned in his flight he saw the goods so neatly arranged at
his orders, and there flashed through him, even in the thick of the
spears, the thought that he