Limekiller!

He could turn it over to Government, Honest John; Government, unaccustomed to such alien honesty, might be appreciative; faced with a hillock of paper-work, Government might not. He could give it to his girl. no. He no longer had a girl. Woman. Wife. Free-mate. Boiling the near-past down like the stinking tripes of a whale in a try-pot, he hadn’t any longer even a whore. He could give it to Mrs. Ella. Who deserved it, if only for the brandy. That, alas and however (here he took in two reefs of the mainsail, observed the nimbus of the setting sun behind the Mountains of the Morning), would involve him in probably infinite conversation, as the last woman able to accept a gift without many words. well, when did she die?

He could keep it, concealed, so very tiny it was, as long as he remained down here. But that might be forever. And each time he came across it, he would Remember. No.

He would slip it into the poor-box of whichever church he first encountered; tempted though he was by the thought of laying it upon the high altar. He would simply drop it in. No one would know. The church would, likely, probably, what else? sell it. And some old man or woman might be enabled to fulfill the ancient, willful (but how natural words) wmrds, Nay, but we would eat flesh. He gave one last and terrified shudder at the echo of these last two words, and the memories evoked.

But no one else noticed.

He brought the Duckersons to the very front of their hotel; no boats might long linger there, there being no lawful mooring: but no one would care if he tarried a few minutes… an hour. They were pleased. They were very pleased. Nothing like that had ever happened to them before, and likely never would (in Cow Pat, Kansas? in Buffalo Bong, Alberta?) likely, again. John had to come in with them. They didn’t remember when they’d had a nicer trip, John. Wouldn’t John like a drink? Wouldn’t John like to take a nice hot, well, warm, or even cold shower, in their hotel soot? Wouldn’t John like to have dunner with them?

Maybe the River View Hotel would never have made Duncan Hines or the Michelin three-star list: but it very certainly beat The New Shanghai, and/or any palace of Fry Chicken/Tin Soup/Hom Somwich delights.

They, then, he had not asked for anything in advance, paid him. In nice, crisp, countersigned Travellers Cheques. How pleased Mr. Ogilvy, of the Grand Dominion Bank, would be when Limekiller deposited them next day: wiping out his, Limekiller’s, overdraft. And almost at once, being of or rather as one flesh, their heads began to nod. Made excuses. Assured him again what a lovely trip they’d had (they). Said they would surely give a lot of thought to his offer. Which they would. But they wouldn’t buy. He would keep on taking visitors down there, but. No. He would not. Not there. And neither could he sell. Not now, that he knew.

Government might have it back again. Unless, in the meanwhile he would sell it, cheap, to his worst enemy. Whoever that might be. Not even to him. Her. Forget it.

The Duckersons had made their last farewells. What, then, next? By all sense, Limekiller should have been more than merely tired. He should have been wiped out. He should either go back to his boat, or — he had money now! — taken a hotel room; if not here, then, well, somewhere. But he was not tired. He did not desire to sleep. Was he afraid he might dream? He was by this time out on the street. The usual late night throngs passed up and down, haling each other, and, by now, him, too. His mind was trying to think of nothing.

He was in the Spyglass again. So was Professor Brolly. So was Colonel Pygore. Little seemed changed. Pygore was speaking. Brolly was listening. Limekiller was drinking.

“And I came upon something when I was in West Africa once,” Pygore said. murmured, rather. “Well…” a ghost of a smile care over his ghost of a face; “came upon many things there. very damned glad some of them never came upon me,” with his ghost of a chuckle.

“Oh, drop the other shoe, Pygore!”

“Yes. Well. An old Government order.” Suddenly becoming crisp in his delivery, as though quoting something: Pilgrimages into the District of So-and-So for the purpose of worshipping the fetish Zumbi, whether in the form of a tree, a juju-image, or an animal, is hereby forbidden under Schedule Such-and-such-a number, ofj well, whatever date,1 is hereby and until further notice-forbidden, because of the loss of lives resultant therefrom. “‘

A silence. Something stirred in Limekiller’s rum-numbed mind, and he pressed it still and quiet.