oming filled with a stir invisible and living as of
subtle breaths. All the ghosts driven out of the unbelieving West by men
who pretend to be wise and alone and at peace--all the homeless ghosts
of an unbelieving world--appeared suddenly round the figure of Hollis
bending over the box; all the exiled and charming shades of loved women;
all the beautiful and tender ghosts of ideals, remembered, forgotten,
cherished, execrated; all the cast-out and reproachful ghosts of friends
admired, trusted, traduced, betrayed, left dead by the way--they all
seemed to come from the inhospitable regions of the earth to crowd
into the gloomy cabin, as though it had been a refuge and, in all the
unbelieving world, the only place of avenging belief. . . . It lasted a
second--all disappeared. Hollis was facing us alone with something small
that glittered between his fingers. It looked like a coin.

"Ah! here it is," he said.

He held it up. It was a sixpence--a Jubilee sixpence. It was gilt; it
had a hole punched near the rim. Hollis looked towards Karain.

"A charm for our friend," he said to us. "The thing itself is of great
power--money, you know--and his imagination is struck. A loyal vagabond;
if only his puritanism doesn't shy at a likeness . . ."

We said nothing. We did not know whether to be scandalized, amused, or
relieved. Hollis advanced towards Karain, who stood up as if startled,
and then, holding the coin up, spoke in Malay.

"This is the image of the Great Queen, and the most powerful thing the
white men know," he said, solemnly.

Karain covered the handle of his kriss in sign of respect, and stared at
the crowned head.

"The Invincible, the Pious," he muttered.

"She is more powerful than Suleiman the Wise, who commanded the genii,
as you know," said Hollis, gravely. "I shall give this to you."

He held the sixpence in the palm of his hand, and looking at it
thoughtfully, spoke to us in English.

"She commands a spirit, too--the spirit of her nation; a masterful,
conscientious, unscrupulous, unconquerable devil . . . that does a lot
of good--incidentally . . . a lot of good . . . at times--and wouldn't
stand any fuss from the best ghost out for such a little thing as our
friend's shot. Don't look thunderstruck, you fellows. Help me to make
him believe--everything's in that."

"His people will be shocked," I murmured.

Hollis looked fixedly at Karain, who was the incarnation of the very
essence of still excit