I woke with a start. The moon was shining; long paths of silver had been hewn between the trees. The fleece of the kneeling sheep was sparkling and dewy. Far down one of the paths I could see a limping figure approaching. He was shouting and singing and stabbing at his shadow. As he came nearer I could distinctly see that he held a bottle in his hand. Something warned me. I roused Ruthita, telling her to make no sound. We ran till we were breathless and the shouting could be no more heard.
Trees grew wider apart where we had halted. Far away a flare of light shone up; as we watched we saw that people passed before it. Hand-in-hand we advanced. Something groaned quite near us. We commenced to run, but, looking back, saw that it was only a tethered donkey. We came to the outskirts of the crowd. We wanted company badly. Burrowing under arms and legs we made our way to the front. A great linen sheet was stretched between two trees. Set up on iron rings before it was a line of cocoanuts. On either side flaring naphtha-lamps were burning. About thirty yards away from the sheet a woman was serving out wooden balls. Between the sheet and the cocoanuts a man was darting up and down, dodging the balls as they were thrown and returning them. The man and woman were calling out together, “Two shies a penny. Two shies a penny. Every ball ’its a cocoanut. Down she goes. ’Ere you are, sir. Two for the children and one for the missis. Walk up. Walk up. Two shies a penny.”
Whether a cocoanut went down or stayed up, they continued to assert in a hoarse, cracked monotone that it had fallen. Their faces were dripping with perspiration. The man returned the balls and the woman served them out again mechanically. The throwers took off their coats and hurled furiously, to the accompaniment of the shrill staccato chatter of the crowd.
Ruthita and I stood blinking in the semi-darkness, our eyes dazzled by the lamps. Suddenly I called out, and pushing my way between the throwers, commenced running up the pitch. The man behind the cocoanuts, realizing that the balls had ceased coming, stopped dodging and looked up to see what was the matter. Just then an impatient thrower hurled a ball which went whizzing over me, missed the cocoanuts, and hit the man on the head, splitting his eyebrow. I was terribly afraid that he would topple over and lie still, like Dot-and-Carry-One had told me men did in battle. Instead of that, when I came within reach of him he clutched me angrily by the shoulder, asking me what the devil I meant. The blood, creeping down his face in a slow trickle, made him look twice as fierce as when I had first met him with my Uncle Obad by the gipsy campfire. He drew me near to one of the lamps, smearing his forehead with the back of his hand. He recognized me.
“Oh, it’s you, you young cuss, is it?”
Just then the fortune-telling girl came up, whom I had seen before with the baby on her back. She was carrying Ruthita.
“Here, Lilith,” he said, speaking gruffly, “take ’im to your tent.”
Then he commenced again, “Two shies a penny. Two shies a penny. Every ball ’its a cocoanut. Down she goes,” etc.
I was glad to creep into the cool darkness, clinging close to Lilith’s skirt. I was a little boy now, with scarcely a desire to be a husband. When I looked across my shoulder the game was in full swing. The woman was serving out the balls; the crowd was paying its pennies; the man was dodging up and down before the sheet, avoiding the balls and returning them. I heaved a sigh of relief; then he had not succumbed—he was not yet a dead’un.