"Scorpions, then," insisted Cyprian gloomily.
"Fourthly, a perforated roof cannot affect us until the Rains, and there will be ample time before they break, should we still be here, for you to have constructed us a model mansion with hot and cold water laid on and clematis and cabbages before and behind respectively.... Do I hear the sweet chiming of the village bells?"
"You do," replied Cyprian. "And, if I mistake not, shortly they will be drowned by the pious fervour of the village choir."
When they emerged at the clearing the bell was, indeed, ringing to Evensong.
Jellybrand had added a voluminous surplice and a limp stole to his attire, but had raptly removed his white canvas shoes instead of his topee, in absent-minded imitation of his parishioners.
A procession was forming outside the church led by Mr. Pell in the capacity of cross-bearer; in fact, it was Mr. Pell's top-hat that caused the padre to recollect that he was being reverent the wrong end for the colour of his skin, before the red-breeched row of boys proceeded to "survey the wondrous cross" in the highest key of which the concertina was capable.
The Unsaved of the village were cutting bamboo decorations, in the background, for a moonlight festival about to be held with the object of securing a mate for a lonely demon, who had been bringing bad luck to the community and was expected to depart in peace as soon as a she-demon could be found to share his flitting.
Ferlie and Cyprian stood some way apart from the two groups of worshippers while the crimson sunlight streamed across the stems of the coco-nut palms, and stained the uplifted cross as its followers passed, two by two, into the toy church and the last notes of the hymn thinned into silence.
The words were dragged out painfully by the child-voices singing in a strange tongue of a strange story, brought to them by strangers from another land.
"His dying crimson like a robe,
Spread o'er His Body on the Tree;
Then am I dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me."