Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/274

262 in a position where I couldn’t have laid mine on him, I should have had a nice little experience before he’d done. That was the kind of mood he was in.

Long before he had said all that he had to say he was joined by quite a crowd. When he had about cursed himself out, he started on a funny little entertainment of another kind. He made a fire close down by the sea. His friends formed about it in a circle. He stood in the centre. As the flames rose and fell he dropped things on them, stuff which smoked and burned in different colours. The sort of rubbish which boys in England buy in ha’porths and penn’orths, and make themselves a nuisance with. Possibly, out there it costs more, so is thought a lot of. As he put his rubbish on his fire, his friends moved round first one way and then the other, behaving themselves generally like fantastic idiots. And he threw himself into attitudes which would have been a photographer’s joy. I had an impression that he was calling down the wrath of the gods upon our heads, and doing it in style.

Our return to the ship created a good deal of excitement. One might lay long odds that every man on board had been watching, for all that he was worth, whatever there was to watch, without being able to make head or tail of what he had seen. So that our arrival just gave the final touch to the general curiosity.

The things, whose departure those gentlemen on shore were weeping for, were got on board. The Great Joss wanted to be hoisted up in his palanquin. When I pointed out that there were obstacles in the way, he came out of it with a rush and shinned up the ship’s side like a monkey. His appearance on deck made things lively. The men took him for the devil, and shrank from him as such. Not wanting any more fuss than might be helped, I led the way down the companion as fast as I could. He came after me.