"A long w-while ago, he had forty devils extracted from him by the menluana, or w-witch doctors, and it is hardly surprising that, under their conscientious exorcism, he nearly died. All the men in the village sat round him in a circle and on anyone's perceiving a devil he pounced on it, w-wrapped it in a leaf, and put it in the corner of the house.
"Every year, the Chief Commissioner, w-when he inspects us from Port Blair, presents him w-with a suit of clothes in virtue of his position; but he reserves them for festivals and always puts them away w-when it rains.
"The two beside him are Mr. Corney Grain and Mr. Don Juan. The traders coming to the islands give them those names in fun, but I hope to baptize them soon and then they w-will be Peter and Paul—much more suitable."
Ferlie wondered why.
A man with enormous calves supporting a very small body approached the speaker confidentially and, presently, Jellybrand interpreted.
"This is James Snook. He and Friend-of-England have both, as you see, got elephantiasis. A lot of them suffer from it—most unfortunate. He w-wishes to show you his new house."
Encouraged to proceed, James waved the party towards a thatched beehive supported on four rickety poles, seeming not to possess, at first sight, either door or window. However, a ladder discovered underneath the contraption vanished into a yawning hole, and Cyprian and Ferlie braved this first, to fall gasping on to a palm-plaited floor which bounded like a spring mattress beneath them. They could not stand upright and there was a thick warmth of atmosphere and almost total darkness until Mr. Snook removed a loose lump of thatch from the wall.
In one corner of the room lay his cooking utensils opposite the rag bundle on which he slept nightly, after blocking out all oxygen.
The walls were covered with works of art cut from any ancient illustrated paper which had happened to fall into his hands from the padre's stock. They were hung, for the most part, upside down, and thus Pavlova waved mocking legs at a Mission print of Christ crucified, into the Figure of which the enlightened James had brilliantly bethought himself to hammer real nails.
Above, glared a garish painting on talc of a Hindu deity with six arms.