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I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, until the
shindy of the arrival began.
"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At the
cost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptian
images one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, I
should guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what it
meant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the man
inside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come up with
luck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly closeness!
the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a stinking fire
on a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought in a lot of gory
muck--the worst parts of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts--
and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but I
understand now how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smell
of burnt-offerings about them.


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