, an' the docthers had japanned him with a five-shillin' piece
beat flat."

Dick interposed with a question as to the process, aim, and object of
japanning, but Mr Button passed the question by.

"He'd been bad enough for seein' fairies before they japanned him, but
afther it, begorra, he was twiced as bad. I was a slip of a lad at the
time, but me hair near turned grey wid the tales he'd tell of the Good
People and their doin's. One night they'd turn him into a harse an'
ride him half over the county, wan chap on his back an' another runnin'
behind, shovin' furze prickles under his tail to make him buck-lep.
Another night it's a dunkey he'd be, harnessed to a little cart, an'
bein' kicked in the belly and made to draw stones. Thin it's a goose
he'd be, runnin' over the common wid his neck stritched out squawkin',
an' an old fairy woman afther him wid a knife, till it fair drove him
to the dhrink; though, by the same token, he didn't want much dhrivin'.

"And what does he do when his money was gone, but tear the
five-shillin' piece they'd japanned him wid aff the top of his hed, and
swaps it for a bottle of whisky, and that was the end of him."

Mr Button paused to relight his pipe, which had gone out, and there was
silence for a moment.

The moon had risen, and the song of the surf on the reef filled the
whole night with its lullaby. The broad lagoon lay waving and rippling
in the moonlight to the incoming tide. Twice as broad it always looked
seen by moonlight or starlight than when seen by day. Occasionally the
splash of a great fish would cross the silence, and the ripple of it
would pass a moment later across the placid water.

Big things happened in the lagoon at night, unseen by eyes from the
shore. You would have found the wood behind them, had you walked
through it, full of light. A tropic forest under a tropic moon is green
as a sea cave. You can see the vine tendrils and the flowers, the
orchids and tree boles all lit as by the light of an emerald-tinted day.

Mr Button took a long piece of string from his pocket.

"It's bedtime," said he; "and I'm going to tether Em'leen, for fear
she'd be walkin' in her slape, and wandherin' away an' bein' lost in
the woods."

"I don't want to be tethered," said Emmeline.

"It's for your own good I'm doin' it," replied Mr Button, fixing the
string round her waist. "Now come 'long."

He led her like a dog in a leash to the tent, and tied the other end of
the str