第112章 THE KING OF APEMAMA:DEVIL-WORK(4)

He rocked on his mat,threw up his closed knees alternately,and struck himself on the breast after the manner of dancers.But he came gold out of the furnace;and with what voice was left him continued to reject the bribe.

And now came a timely interjection.'Money will not heal the sick,'observed the king's sister sententiously;and as soon as Iheard the remark translated my eyes were unsealed,and I began to blush for my employment.Here was a sick child,and I sought,in the view of its parents,to remove the medicine-box.Here was the priest of a religion,and I (a heathen millionaire)was corrupting him to sacrilege.Here was a greedy man,torn in twain betwixt greed and conscience;and I sat by and relished,and lustfully renewed his torments.AVE,CAESAR!Smothered in a corner,dormant but not dead,we have all the one touch of nature:an infant passion for the sand and blood of the arena.So I brought to an end my first and last experience of the joys of the millionaire,and departed amid silent awe.Nowhere else can I expect to stir the depths of human nature by an offer of five pounds;nowhere else,even at the expense of millions,could I hope to see the evil of riches stand so legibly exposed.Of all the bystanders,none but the king's sister retained any memory of the gravity and danger of the thing in hand.Their eyes glowed,the girl beat her breast,in senseless animal excitement.Nothing was offered them;they stood neither to gain nor to lose;at the mere name and wind of these great sums Satan possessed them.

From this singular interview I went straight to the palace;found the king;confessed what I had been doing;begged him,in my name,to compliment Terutak'on his virtue,and to have a similar box made for me against the return of the schooner.Tembinok',Rubam,and one of the Daily Papers -him we used to call 'the Facetiae Column'-laboured for a while of some idea,which was at last intelligibly delivered.They feared I thought the box would cure me;whereas,without the wizard,it was useless;and when I was threatened with another cold I should do better to rely on pain-killer.I explained I merely wished to keep it in my 'outch'as a thing made in Apemama and these honest men were much relieved.

Late the same evening,my wife,crossing the isle to windward,was aware of singing in the bush.Nothing is more common in that hour and place than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter,swinging high overhead,beholding below him the narrow ribbon of the isle,the surrounding field of ocean,and the fires of the sunset.But this was of a graver character,and seemed to proceed from the ground-level.Advancing a little in the thicket,Mrs.Stevenson saw a clear space,a fine mat spread in the midst,and on the mat a wreath of white flowers and one of the devil-work boxes.A woman -whom we guess to have been Mrs.Terutak'-sat in front,now drooping over the box like a mother over a cradle,now lifting her face and directing her song to heaven.A passing toddy-cutter told my wife that she was praying.Probably she did not so much pray as deprecate;and perhaps even the ceremony was one of disenchantment.