Ferlie, her conscience pricking, tendered him radiant thanks. After his departure Cyprian demurred.
"It's a track through the jungle where a Red Indian would knock his shins every five minutes, and if the blighter intends driving us out behind Slippery Sam at night, I prophesy that you will spend the small hours of the morning sitting in a cactus hedge and consigning him elsewhere."
Slippery Sam, a one-eyed horse, by whose exertions the padre proudly made his rounds, was nearly as great a danger to the community as his shot-gun.
Jellybrand had bought him, cheap, of a trader because his one eye, making him nervous, he was a consistent kicker.
However, though there happened to be a brilliant moon which silvered the palms and blackened their shadows to thick treacley pools, Slippery Sam, with Ferlie behind the driver and Cyprian perched on the back seat of the rocking tonga, appeared that evening to be in spiritual rather than spirited mood.
"He's really a very nice horse," Jellybrand's mild accents assured them, "and w-would you believe it?—he loves ripe coco-nuts."
"I saw you picking yours to-day, Padre," said Ferlie. "What do you expect to make off your plantation?"
He sighed. "It's only an experiment of mine. I am so anxious to have a chancel lamp. One that burns perpetually, you know. My Party is coming on so at Home. All the Anglo-Catholic churches have them, I am told. It is so unfortunate that I can only afford a night-light in a glass. I have pasted red paper over the glass, as you have probably noticed. It isn't altogether impressive as a substitute, but it pleases the children."
"Of whom you are the most childish," thought Cyprian; but aloud he said, "do you seriously think that, if your Mission left the natives in peace for one year, there would be a Christian left in the islands at the end of that time?"
"The Lord is mindful of His own," returned Jellybrand reproachfully. "One puts one's trust in the rising generation. But the mothers will hide the children at census times, lest the Government spirit them away to school!"