arms extended like a backboard. The
visit was extraordinarily long. The king, no longer galvanised with gin,
said and did nothing. He sat collapsed in a chair and let a cigar go
out. It was hot, it was sleepy, it was cruel dull; there was no resource
but to spy in the countenance of Tebureimoa for some remaining trait of
_Mr. Corpse_ the butcher. His hawk nose, crudely depressed and flattened
at the point, did truly seem to us to smell of midnight murder. When he
took his leave, Maka bade me observe him going down the stair (or rather
ladder) from the verandah. "Old man," said Maka. "Yes," said I, "and yet
I suppose not old man." "Young man," returned Maka, "perhaps fo'ty." And
I have heard since he is most likely younger.

While the magic lantern was showing, I skulked without in the dark. The
voice of Maka, excitedly explaining the Scripture slides, seemed to fill
not the church only, but the neighbourhood. All else was silent.
Presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a
procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and
women striking in my face delightfully. At the corner, arrested by the
voice of Maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they
paused. They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. They were Makin
people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the
missionary and his works. Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their
company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; next moment three
had followed him; the next it was a covey of near upon a score, all
pelting for their lives. So the little band of the heathen paused
irresolute at the corner, and melted before the attractions of a magic
lantern, like a glacier in spring. The more staunch vainly taunted the
deserters; three fled in a guilty silence, but still fled; and when at
length the leader found the wit or the authority to get his troop in
motion and revive the singing, it was with much diminished forces that
they passed musically on up the dark road.

Meanwhile inside the luminous pictures brightened and faded. I stood for
some while unobserved in the rear of the spectators, when I could hear
just in front of me a pair of lovers following the show with interest,
the male playing the part of interpreter and (like Adam) mingling
caresses with his lecture. The wild animals, a tiger in particular, and
that old school-treat favourite, the sleeper and the mouse, were hailed
with joy