"The mamaloi—the mamaloi—high priestess of voodoo."
"Her house is fairly clean," Simpson said. He was hardly aware of his own inconsequence. It was his instinct to defend any one who was attacked on moral grounds, whether they deserved the attack or not.
"Ye-es," Witherbee drawled. "I dare say it is. It's her company that's unsavoury. Especially for a parson. Eh? What's the matter now?"
Simpson had flared up at his last words. His mouth set and his eyes burned suddenly. Bunsen, watching him coolly, wondered that he could kindle so; until that moment he had seemed but half alive. When he spoke his words came hurriedly—were almost unintelligible; yet there was some quality in his voice that compelled attention, affecting the senses more than the mind.
"Unsavoury company? That's best for a parson. 'I come not to bring the righteous but sinners to repentance.' And who are you to brand the woman as common or unclean? If she is a heathen priestess, yet she worships a god of some sort. Do you?" He stopped suddenly; the humility which men hated in him again blanketed his fanaticism. "It is my task to give her a better god—the only true God—Christ."
Bunsen, his legs wide apart, kept his eyes on the sea, for he did not want to let Simpson see him smiling, and he was smiling. Witherbee, who had no emotions of any sort, pulled his moustache farther down and looked at the clergyman as though he were under glass—a curiosity.
"So you're going to convert the whole island?" he said.
"I hope to make a beginning in the Lord's vineyard."
"Humph! The devil's game-preserve, you mean," Bunsen suddenly broke in.
"The devil's game-preserve, then!" Simpson was defiant.