before, quite a little tin--"

"Now stop it, Doc. I know you're one of those fellows that don't mean
half they say, but I won't have that thrown against me, even in jest."

"Well," said Clay, slily, "there's no getting over the fact that some
person or persons unknown sacrificed a hen up against the door of this
hut under cover of last night, and I guess they're not likely to waste
the fowl on me."

"One can't cure them of their old ways all at once," said Kettle, with a
frown.

"And some genius," Clay went on, "has carved a little wooden image in
trousers and coat, nicely whitewashed, and stuck up on that old _ju-ju_
tree down there by the swamp. I saw it when I was down there this
morning. Of course, it mayn't be intended to be a likeness of you,
skipper, but it's got a pith helmet on, which the up-country nigger
doesn't generally add to portraits of himself; and moreover, it's
wearing a neat torpedo beard on the end of its chin, delicately colored
vermilion."

"Well?" said Kettle sourly.

"Oh, that had got a hen sacrificed in front of it, too, that's all. I
recognize the bird; he was a game old rooster that used to crow at me
every time I passed him."

"Beastly pagans," Kettle growled. "There's no holding some of them yet.
They suck up the glad tidings like mother's milk at first, and they're
back at their old ways again before you've taught them the tune of a
hymn. I just want to catch one or two of these backsliders. By James!
I'll give them fits in a way they won't forget."

But if Captain Kettle was keen on the conversion of the heathen to the
tenets of the Tyneside chapel, he was by no means forgetful of his
commercial duties. He had always got Mrs. Kettle, the family, and the
beauties of a home life in an agricultural district at the back of his
mind, and to provide the funds necessary for a permanent enjoyment of
all these items close at hand, he worked both Clay and himself
remorselessly.

Ivory does not grow on hedgerows even in Africa, and the necessary store
could by no means be picked up even in a day, or even in a matter of
weeks. Ivory has been looked upon by the African savage, from time
immemorial, not as an article of use, but as currency, and as such it is
vaguely revered. He does not often of his own free will put it into
circulation; in fact, his life may well pass without his once seeing it
used as a purchasing medium; but custom sits strong on him, and he likes
to have it by him. An