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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - Jimmy Goggles the God · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section twenty three of the Country of the Blind and
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Speaker 1: Other Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is
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Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley. Jimmy goggles
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Speaker 1: the God. It isn't every one who's been a god,
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Speaker 1: said the sunburnt Man, but it's happened to me, among
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Speaker 1: other things. I intimated my sense of his condescension. It
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Speaker 1: don't leave much for ambition, does it, said the sunburnt Man.
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Speaker 1: I was one of those men who were saved from
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Speaker 1: the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy, how time flies. It's twenty years ago.
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Speaker 1: I doubt if you'll remember anything of the Ocean Pioneer.
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Speaker 1: The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when
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Speaker 1: and where I had read it. The Ocean Pioneer. Something
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Speaker 1: about gold dust, I said, vaguely. But the precess, that's it,
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Speaker 1: he said in a beastly little channel. She hadn't no
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Speaker 1: business in dodging pirates. It was before they put the
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Speaker 1: kybush on that business, and there'd been volcanoes or something,
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Speaker 1: and all the rocks was wrong. There's places about by
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Speaker 1: sooner where you fair have to follow the rocks about
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Speaker 1: to see where they're going next. Down, she went in
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Speaker 1: twenty fathoms before you could have dealt for whist with
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Speaker 1: fifty thousand pounds worth of gold aboard, it was said,
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Speaker 1: in one form or another. Survivors three. I remember the
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Speaker 1: case now, I said. There was something about salvage. But
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Speaker 1: at the word salvage, the sunburnt Man exploded into language
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Speaker 1: so extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down
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Speaker 1: to more ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. Excuse me,
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Speaker 1: he said, but salvage he leant over towards me. I
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Speaker 1: was in that job, he said, tried to make myself
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Speaker 1: a rich man and got made of God instead. I've
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Speaker 1: got my feelings. It ain't all jam being a god,
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Speaker 1: said the sunburnt Man, And for some time conversed by
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Speaker 1: means of such pithee but unprogressive axioms. At last he
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Speaker 1: took up his tail again. There was me, said the
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Speaker 1: sun burnt Man, and a seaman named Jacob's and always
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Speaker 1: the mate of the Ocean Pioneer. And him. It was
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Speaker 1: that set the whole thing going. I remember him now,
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Speaker 1: when we were in the jolly boat, suggesting it all
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Speaker 1: to our minds, just by one sentence. He was a
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Speaker 1: wonderful hand at suggesting things. There was forty thousand pounds,
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Speaker 1: he said, on that ship, and it's for me to
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Speaker 1: say just where she went down. It didn't need much
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Speaker 1: brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader
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Speaker 1: from the first to the last. He got hold of
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Speaker 1: the Sanderses and their brig. They were brothers, and the
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Speaker 1: brig was the pride of Banya, and he it was
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Speaker 1: bought the diving dress, a second hand one with a
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Speaker 1: compressed air apparatus instead of pumping. He'd have done the
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Speaker 1: diving too, if it hadn't made him sick going down.
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Speaker 1: And the salwage people were mucking about with a chart
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Speaker 1: he'd cooked up as solemn as could be. At star Race,
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Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty miles away, I can tell you
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Speaker 1: we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and
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Speaker 1: drink and bright hopes all the time. It all seemed
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Speaker 1: so neat and clean and straightforward and what rough chaps
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Speaker 1: call a sert. And we used to speculate how the
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Speaker 1: other blessed lot, the proper salvages who'd started two days
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Speaker 1: before us, were getting on. Until our sides fairly ached.
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Speaker 1: We all messed together in the Sanderses cabin. It was
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Speaker 1: a curious crew, all officers and no men, and there
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Speaker 1: stood the diving dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was
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Speaker 1: a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly was something
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Speaker 1: funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare.
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Speaker 1: And he made us see it too. Jimmy Goggles, he
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Speaker 1: used to call it, and talk to it like a Christian,
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Speaker 1: asked if he was married, and how missus Goggles was,
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Speaker 1: and all the little goggleses fits to make you split.
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Speaker 1: And every blessed day all of us used to drink
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Speaker 1: the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrew his
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Speaker 1: eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until
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Speaker 1: instead of that nasty macintoshery ness, he smelt as nice
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Speaker 1: in his inside as a cask of rum. It was
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Speaker 1: jolly times we had in those days. I can tell you,
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Speaker 1: little suspecting poor chaps, what was her coming. We weren't
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Speaker 1: going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry,
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Speaker 1: you know. And we spent the whole day sounding our
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Speaker 1: way towards where the Ocean Pioneer had gone down, right
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Speaker 1: between two chunks of ropey gray rock, lava rocks that
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Speaker 1: rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay
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Speaker 1: off about half a mile to get a safe anchorage.
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Speaker 1: And there was a thundering row who should stop on board,
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Speaker 1: And there she lay just as she had gone down,
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Speaker 1: so that you could see the top of the masts
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Speaker 1: that were still standing perfectly distinctly. The row ended in
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Speaker 1: all coming in the boat. I went down in the
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Speaker 1: diving dress on Friday morning. Directly it was light. What
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Speaker 1: a surprise it was. I can see it all now
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Speaker 1: quite distinctly. It was a queer looking place, and the
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Speaker 1: light was just coming. People over here think every blessed
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Speaker 1: place in the Tropics is a flat shore and palm
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Speaker 1: trees and surf bless em This place, for instance, wasn't
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Speaker 1: a bit that way. Not common rocks they were undermined
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Speaker 1: by waves, but great curved banks like iron work, cinder
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Speaker 1: heaps with green slime below, and thorny shrubs and things
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Speaker 1: just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy,
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Speaker 1: calm and clear and showing you a kind of dirty
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Speaker 1: gray black shine, with huge flaring red brown weeds spreading
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Speaker 1: motionless and crawling and darting things going through it, and
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Speaker 1: far away beyond the ditches and pools and the heaps,
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Speaker 1: was a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after
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Speaker 1: the fires and cinder showers of the last eruption, and
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Speaker 1: the other way forest too, and a kind of broken
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Speaker 1: what is it Ambithiet of black and rusty cinders rising
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Speaker 1: out of it all, and the sea in a kind
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Speaker 1: of bay in the middle. The down, I say, was
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Speaker 1: just coming. And there wasn't much color about things. And
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Speaker 1: not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up
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Speaker 1: or down the channel, except the pride of Banya lying
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Speaker 1: out beyond a lump of rocks towards the line of
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Speaker 1: the sea. Not a human being in sight, he repeated,
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Speaker 1: and paused. I don't know where they came from, not
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Speaker 1: a bit. And we were feeling so safe that we
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Speaker 1: were all alone, that poor young Sanders was a singing.
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Speaker 1: I was in Jimmy goggles all except the helmet, easy says,
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Speaker 1: always there's her mast. And after I'd had just one
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Speaker 1: squint over the gunwale, I caught up the bowgie and
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Speaker 1: almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat round.
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Speaker 1: When the windows were screwed and everything was all right,
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Speaker 1: I shut the valve from the air belt in order
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Speaker 1: to help my sinking, and jumped overboard feet foremost, for
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Speaker 1: we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and
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Speaker 1: all of them staring down into the water after me
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Speaker 1: as my head sank down into the weeds and blackness
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Speaker 1: that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not the
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Speaker 1: most cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about
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Speaker 1: a look out at such a desolate place. It's stunk
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Speaker 1: of solitude. Of course, you must understand that I was
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Speaker 1: a greenhorn at diving. None of us were divers. We'd
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Speaker 1: had to muck about with the thing to get the
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Speaker 1: way of it, and this was the first time I'd
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Speaker 1: been deep. It feels damnable. Your ears hurt beastly. I
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Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning or sneezing,
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Speaker 1: but it takes you like that, only ten times worse.
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Speaker 1: And a pain over the eyebrows here splitting, and a
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Speaker 1: feeling like influenza in the head, and it isn't all
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Speaker 1: heaven in your lungs and things, and going down feels
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Speaker 1: like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on
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Speaker 1: and you can't turn your head to see what's above you,
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Speaker 1: and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening
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Speaker 1: to your feet without bending down something painful and being deep.
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Speaker 1: It was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes
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Speaker 1: and mud that formed the bottom. It was like going
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Speaker 1: down out of the dawn back into the night, so
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Speaker 1: to speak. The mast came up like a ghost out
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Speaker 1: of the black, and then a lot of fishes, and
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Speaker 1: then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack.
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Speaker 1: I came with a kind of dull bang on the
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Speaker 1: deck of the Ocean Pioneer, and the fishes that had
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Speaker 1: been feeding on the dead rose about me like a
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Speaker 1: swarm of flies from road stuff in summer time. I
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Speaker 1: turned on the compressed air again, for the suit was
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Speaker 1: a bit thick and macintoshery after all. In spite of
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Speaker 1: the rum, I stood recovering myself. It struck coolish down there,
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Speaker 1: and that helped take off the stuffiness a bit. When
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Speaker 1: I began to feel easier, I started looking about me.
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Speaker 1: It was an extraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary,
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Speaker 1: a kind of reddy colored twilight on account of the
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Speaker 1: streams of seaweed that floated up on either side of
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Speaker 1: the ship and far overhead, just a moony, deep green blue.
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Speaker 1: The deck of the ship, except for a slight list
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Speaker 1: to starboard, was level and lay all dark and long
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Speaker 1: between the weeds, clear except where the masts had snapped
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Speaker 1: when she rolled and vanishing into black night towards the forecastle.
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Speaker 1: There wasn't any dead on the decks. Most were in
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Speaker 1: the weeds alongside, I suppose, But afterwards I found two
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Speaker 1: skeletons lying in the passengers cabins, where death had come
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Speaker 1: to them. It was curious to stand on that deck
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Speaker 1: and recognize it all bit by bit. A place against
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Speaker 1: the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight,
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Speaker 1: and the corner where an old chap from Sydney used
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Speaker 1: to flirt with a widow. We had aboard a comfortable couple.
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Speaker 1: They'd been only a month ago, and now you couldn't
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Speaker 1: have got a meal for a baby crab or either
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Speaker 1: of them. I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn,
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Speaker 1: and I dare say I spent the best part of
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Speaker 1: five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to
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Speaker 1: find where the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work,
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Speaker 1: hunting feeling. It was, for the most part pitchy dark
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Speaker 1: with confusing blue gleams. Down the companion, and there were
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Speaker 1: things moving about. A dab at my glass once and
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Speaker 1: once a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I
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Speaker 1: kicked a lot of loose stuff that puzzled me, and
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Speaker 1: stooped and picked up something all knobs and spikes. What
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Speaker 1: do you think, backbone? But I never had any particular
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Speaker 1: feeling for bones. We had talked the affair over pretty
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Speaker 1: thoroughly and always knew just where the stuff was stowed.
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Speaker 1: I found it that trip. I lifted a box one
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Speaker 1: end an inch or more. He broke off in his story.
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Speaker 1: I've lifted it, he said, as near as that fought
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Speaker 1: e thousand pounds worth of pure gold gold. I shouted
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Speaker 1: inside my helmet as a kind of cheer, and hurt
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Speaker 1: my ears. I was getting confounded, stuffy, and tired by
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Speaker 1: this time. I must have been down twenty five minutes
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Speaker 1: or more, and I thought this was good enough. I
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Speaker 1: went up the companion again, and as my eyes came up,
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Speaker 1: flushed with the deck, a thundering great crab gave a
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Speaker 1: kind of hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. Quite
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Speaker 1: a start. It gave me. I stood up clear on
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Speaker 1: deck and shut the valve behind the helmet to let
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Speaker 1: the air accumulate to carry me up again. I noticed
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Speaker 1: a kind of whacking from above, as though they were
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Speaker 1: hitting the water with an oar, but I didn't look up.
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Speaker 1: I fancied they were signaling me to come up. And
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Speaker 1: then something shot down by me, something heavy and stood
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Speaker 1: a quiver in the planks. I looked, and there was
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Speaker 1: a long knife I had seen young Sanders handling since
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Speaker 1: I he stropped it, and I was still calling him
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Speaker 1: this kind of fool and that for it might have
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Speaker 1: hurt me serious. When I began to lift and to
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Speaker 1: drive up towards the daylight, just about the level of
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Speaker 1: the top spars of the ocean, pioneer whack, I came
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Speaker 1: against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front
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Speaker 1: of my helmet. Then something else, struggling, frightful. It was
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Speaker 1: a big weight at top of me wherever it was,
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Speaker 1: and moving and twisting about. I'd have thought it was
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Speaker 1: a big octopus or some such thing if it hadn't
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Speaker 1: been for the boot, but octopuses don't wear boots. It
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Speaker 1: was all in a moment, of course, I thought myself
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Speaker 1: sinking down again, and I threw my arms about to
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Speaker 1: keep steady, and the whole lot rolled free of me
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Speaker 1: and shot down. As I went up, he paused. I
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Speaker 1: saw Young Sanders face over a naked black shoulder, and
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Speaker 1: a spear driven clean through his neck and out of
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Speaker 1: his mouth and neck what looked like spurts of pink
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Speaker 1: smoke in the water. And down they went, clutching one
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Speaker 1: another and turning over, and both too far gone to
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Speaker 1: leave go. And in another second my helmet came a
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Speaker 1: whack fit to split against the nigger's canoe. It was niggers,
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Speaker 1: two canoes full. It was lively times, I tell you.
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Speaker 1: Overboard came Always with three spears in him. There was
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Speaker 1: the legs of three or four black chaps kicking about
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Speaker 1: me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I
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Speaker 1: saw the game up at a glance, gave my valve
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Speaker 1: a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again after poor,
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Speaker 1: always in as awful a state of scare and astonishment
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Speaker 1: as you can well imagine, I passed Young Sanders and
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Speaker 1: the nigger, going up again and struggling still a bit,
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Speaker 1: And in another moment I was standing in the dim
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Speaker 1: again on the deck of the Ocean Pioneer. Gummy thinks,
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Speaker 1: I here's a fix, niggers. At first, I couldn't see
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Speaker 1: anything for it but stifle below or stabs above. I
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Speaker 1: didn't properly understand how much air there was to last
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Speaker 1: me out, but I didn't feel like standing very much
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Speaker 1: more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully heady,
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Speaker 1: quite apart from the blue funk I was in. We'd
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Speaker 1: never reckoned with these beastly natives, filthy Papuan beasts. It
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Speaker 1: wasn't any good coming up where I was, but I
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Speaker 1: had to do something. On the spur of the moment,
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Speaker 1: I clambered over the side of the brig and landed
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Speaker 1: among the weeds, and set off through the darkness as
13:56
Speaker 1: fast as I could. I just stopped once and knelt
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Speaker 1: and twisted my head back in the helmet and had
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Speaker 1: a look up. It was a most extraordinary bright blue
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Speaker 1: green above, and the two canoes and the boat floating there,
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Speaker 1: very small and distinct, like a kind of twisted h
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Speaker 1: and it made me feel sick to squint up at
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Speaker 1: it and think what the pitching and swaying of the
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Speaker 1: three meant. It was just about the most horrible ten
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Speaker 1: minutes I ever had, blundering about in that darkness, pressure,
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Speaker 1: something awful like being buried in sand, pain across the chest,
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Speaker 1: sick with funk, and breathing, nothing as it seemed, but
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Speaker 1: the smell of rum and mackintosh gummy. After a bit
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Speaker 1: I found myself going up a steepish sort of slope.
14:42
Speaker 1: I had another squint to see if anything was visible
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Speaker 1: of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I
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Speaker 1: stopped with my head afoot from the surface and tried
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Speaker 1: to see where I was going, But of course nothing
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Speaker 1: was to be seen but the reflection of the bottom.
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Speaker 1: Then out I dashed, like knocking my head through a mirror. Directly,
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Speaker 1: I cut my eyes out of the water. I saw
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Speaker 1: I'd come up a kind of beach near the forest.
15:05
Speaker 1: I had a look round, but the natives and the
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Speaker 1: brig were both hidden by a big hummocky heap of
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Speaker 1: twisted lava. The bowne fall in me suggested a run
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Speaker 1: for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but
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Speaker 1: I eased open one of the windows, and after a
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Speaker 1: bit of a pant went on out of the water.
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Speaker 1: You'd hardly imagine how clean and light. The air tasted,
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Speaker 1: of course, with four inches of lead in your boot
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Speaker 1: soles and your head in a copper knob the size
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Speaker 1: of a football, and been thirty five minutes under water,
15:34
Speaker 1: you don't break any records running. I ran like a
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Speaker 1: plowboy going to work, and half way to the trees
15:41
Speaker 1: I saw a dozen niggers or more coming out in
15:44
Speaker 1: a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. I
15:48
Speaker 1: just stopped dead and cursed myself for all the falls
15:51
Speaker 1: out of London. I had about as much chance of
15:54
Speaker 1: cutting back to the water as a turned turtle. I
15:57
Speaker 1: just screwed up my window again to lee my hands
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Speaker 1: free and waited for them. There wasn't anything else for
16:03
Speaker 1: me to do. But they didn't come on very much.
16:07
Speaker 1: I began to suspect why Jimmy goggles. I says, it's
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Speaker 1: your beauty, does it? I was inclined to be a
16:13
Speaker 1: little light headed. I think, with all these dangers about
16:16
Speaker 1: and the change in the pressure of the blessed air,
16:19
Speaker 1: who are ye staring at? I said, as if the
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Speaker 1: savages could hear me. What you take me for? I've hanged?
16:24
Speaker 1: If I don't give you something to stare at, I
16:26
Speaker 1: said and with that I screwed up the escape valve
16:30
Speaker 1: and turned on the compressed air from the belt until
16:32
Speaker 1: I was swelled out like a blown frog, regular imposing
16:35
Speaker 1: it must have been. I'm blessed if they'd come on
16:38
Speaker 1: a step, and presently one and then another went down
16:41
Speaker 1: on their hands and knees. They didn't know what to
16:44
Speaker 1: make of me, and they was doing the extra polite,
16:46
Speaker 1: which was very wise and reasonable of them. I had
16:50
Speaker 1: half a mind to edge back seaward and cut and run,
16:53
Speaker 1: but it seemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd
16:57
Speaker 1: have been after me. An out of sheer desperation, I
17:00
Speaker 1: began to march towards them up the beach, with slow,
17:03
Speaker 1: heavy steps and waving my blown out arms about in
17:06
Speaker 1: a dignified manner. And inside of me I was singing
17:10
Speaker 1: as small as a tom tit. But there's nothing like
17:13
Speaker 1: a striking appearance to help a man over a difficulty.
17:16
Speaker 1: I found that before, and since people like ourselves, who
17:20
Speaker 1: are up to diving dresses by the time were seven,
17:22
Speaker 1: can scarcely imagine the effect of one on a simple
17:25
Speaker 1: minded savage. One or two of these niggers cut and run.
17:29
Speaker 1: The others started in a great hurry, trying to knock
17:32
Speaker 1: their brains out on the ground. And on I went,
17:34
Speaker 1: as slow and solemn and silly looking and artful as
17:38
Speaker 1: a jobbing plumber. It was evident they took me for
17:41
Speaker 1: something immense. Then up jumped one and began pointing, making
17:45
Speaker 1: extraordinary gestures to me as he did so, and all
17:48
Speaker 1: the others began sharing their attention between me and something
17:52
Speaker 1: out at sea. What's the matter now, I said? I
17:55
Speaker 1: turned slowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw,
17:58
Speaker 1: coming round a point, the poor old pride of Pania,
18:01
Speaker 1: towed by a couple of canoes. The sight fairly made
18:04
Speaker 1: me sick, but they evidently expected some recognition, so I
18:09
Speaker 1: waved my arms in a striking sort of noncommittal manner,
18:13
Speaker 1: and then I turned and stalked on towards the trees again.
18:17
Speaker 1: At that time I was praying, like mad I remember,
18:20
Speaker 1: over and over again. Lord help me through with it, Lord,
18:24
Speaker 1: help me through with it. It's only fools who know
18:27
Speaker 1: nothing of danger can afford to laugh at praying. But
18:31
Speaker 1: these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and
18:33
Speaker 1: away like that. They started a kind of bowing dance
18:36
Speaker 1: about me. And sort of pressed me to take a
18:39
Speaker 1: pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to
18:42
Speaker 1: me they didn't take me for a Brittish citizen, whatever
18:45
Speaker 1: else they thought of me. And for my own part,
18:49
Speaker 1: I was never less anxious to own up to the
18:51
Speaker 1: old country. You'd hardly believe it, perhaps unless you're familiar
18:55
Speaker 1: with savages. But these poor, misguided, ignorant creatures took me
18:59
Speaker 1: straight to their kind of joss place to present me
19:03
Speaker 1: to the blessed old black Stone. There By this time
19:06
Speaker 1: I was beginning to sort of realize the depths of
19:08
Speaker 1: their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity.
19:12
Speaker 1: I took my cue. I started a baritone howl, wow wow,
19:18
Speaker 1: very long on one note, and began waving my arms
19:21
Speaker 1: about a lot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously turned
19:25
Speaker 1: their image over on its side and sat down on it.
19:29
Speaker 1: I wanted to sit down badly, for diving dresses ain't
19:32
Speaker 1: much wear in the tropics, or to put it different,
19:35
Speaker 1: like they're a sight too much. It took away their breath.
19:38
Speaker 1: I could see my sitting on their joss. But in
19:42
Speaker 1: less time than a minute they made up their minds
19:44
Speaker 1: and were hard at work worshiping me, and I can
19:47
Speaker 1: tell you I felt a bit relieved to see things
19:50
Speaker 1: turning out so well in spite of the weight on
19:52
Speaker 1: my shoulders and feet. But what made me anxious was
19:56
Speaker 1: what the chaps in the canoes might think when they
19:58
Speaker 1: came back. If they'd in me in the boat before
20:01
Speaker 1: I went down, and without the helmet on, for they
20:04
Speaker 1: might have been spying and hiding since overnight, they would
20:07
Speaker 1: very likely take a different view from the others. I
20:10
Speaker 1: was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours,
20:13
Speaker 1: as it seemed, until the shindy of the arrival began.
20:17
Speaker 1: But they took it down, the whole blessed village. Took
20:20
Speaker 1: it down at the cost of sitting up stiff and stern,
20:24
Speaker 1: as much like those sitting Egyptian images one sees. As
20:27
Speaker 1: I could manage for pretty near twelve hours, I should
20:30
Speaker 1: guess at least on end I got over it, you'd
20:34
Speaker 1: hardly think what it meant in that heat and stink.
20:37
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them dreamt of the man inside.
20:40
Speaker 1: I was just a wonderful, leathery, great joss that had
20:44
Speaker 1: come up with luck out the water. But the fatigue,
20:48
Speaker 1: the heat, the beastly closeness, the macintosheriness, and the rum
20:54
Speaker 1: and the fuss. They lit a stinking fire on a
20:58
Speaker 1: kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought
21:01
Speaker 1: in a lot of gory muck, the worst parts of
21:03
Speaker 1: what they were feasting on outside the beasts, and burnt
21:07
Speaker 1: it all in my honor. I was getting a bit hungry,
21:10
Speaker 1: but I understand now how gods managed to do without eating,
21:14
Speaker 1: what with the smell of burnt offerings about them. And
21:17
Speaker 1: they brought in a lot of the stuff they'd got
21:19
Speaker 1: off the brig and among other stuff what I was
21:21
Speaker 1: a bit relieved to see the kind of pneumatic pump
21:25
Speaker 1: that was used for the compressed air affair. And then
21:28
Speaker 1: a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced
21:30
Speaker 1: about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways different
21:34
Speaker 1: people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy,
21:38
Speaker 1: I'd have gone for the lot of them. They made
21:41
Speaker 1: me feel that wild. All this time I sat as
21:44
Speaker 1: stiff as company, not knowing anything better to do. And
21:48
Speaker 1: at last, when nightfall came and the wattle joss house
21:52
Speaker 1: place got a bit too shadowy for their taste, all
21:56
Speaker 1: these here savages are afraid of the dark, you know,
21:59
Speaker 1: And I started a sort of moo noise. They built
22:02
Speaker 1: big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in
22:06
Speaker 1: the darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows
22:09
Speaker 1: a bit and think things over and feel just as
22:12
Speaker 1: bad as I liked. And Lord, I was sick. I
22:17
Speaker 1: was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving
22:20
Speaker 1: like a beetle on a pin. Tremendous activity, and nothing
22:24
Speaker 1: done at the end of it, come round just where
22:26
Speaker 1: it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps,
22:30
Speaker 1: beastly drunkard, certainly, but not deserving such a fate. And
22:34
Speaker 1: young Sanders with the spear through his neck wouldn't go
22:37
Speaker 1: out of my mind. There was the treasure down there
22:40
Speaker 1: in the ocean, Pioneer, and how one might get it
22:43
Speaker 1: and hide it somewhere safer and get away and come
22:46
Speaker 1: back for it. And there was a puzzle where to
22:49
Speaker 1: get anything to eat. I tell you I was fair rambling.
22:52
Speaker 1: I was afraid to ask by signs for food for
22:55
Speaker 1: fear of behaving too human. And so there I sat
22:58
Speaker 1: and hungered until very near the dawn. Then the village
23:02
Speaker 1: got a bit quiet and I couldn't stand it any longer,
23:05
Speaker 1: and I went out and got some stuff like artichokes
23:08
Speaker 1: in a bowl and some sour milk. What was left
23:11
Speaker 1: of these I put away among the other offerings, just
23:15
Speaker 1: to give them a hint of my tastes. And in
23:17
Speaker 1: the morning they came to worship and found me sitting up,
23:20
Speaker 1: stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as they'd
23:24
Speaker 1: left me over night. I'd got my back against the
23:27
Speaker 1: central pillar of the hut, and practically I was asleep.
23:32
Speaker 1: And that's how I became a god among the heathen,
23:35
Speaker 1: false god, no doubt and blasphemous. But one can't always
23:40
Speaker 1: pick and choose. Now, I don't want to crack myself
23:43
Speaker 1: up as a god beyond my merits, but I must
23:46
Speaker 1: confess that while I was God to these people, they
23:50
Speaker 1: was extraordinarily successful. I don't say there's anything in it,
23:54
Speaker 1: mind you. They won a battle with another tribe. I
23:57
Speaker 1: got a lot of offerings I didn't want through it.
24:00
Speaker 1: They had wonderful fishing, and their crop of poorer was
24:03
Speaker 1: exceptional fine, and they counted the capture of the brig
24:07
Speaker 1: among the benefits I brought them. I must say, I
24:10
Speaker 1: don't think that was a poor record for a perfectly
24:12
Speaker 1: new hand, And though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I
24:17
Speaker 1: was the tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty
24:21
Speaker 1: nearly four months. What else could I do? Man? But
24:25
Speaker 1: I didn't wear that diving dress all the time. I
24:28
Speaker 1: made em rig me up a sort of holy of holies,
24:31
Speaker 1: and a deuce of a time I had too making
24:34
Speaker 1: them understand what it was I wanted them to do. That, indeed,
24:37
Speaker 1: was the great difficulty making them understand my wishes. I
24:41
Speaker 1: couldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly, even
24:45
Speaker 1: if I'd been able to speak at all, And I
24:48
Speaker 1: couldn't go flapping a lot of gestures at them. So
24:51
Speaker 1: I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them
24:54
Speaker 1: and hooted like one o'clock. Sometimes they did the things
24:58
Speaker 1: I wanted all right, and sometimes they did them all wrong.
25:01
Speaker 1: There was always very willing, certainly all the time I
25:04
Speaker 1: was puzzling how I was to get the confounded business settled.
25:08
Speaker 1: Every night before the dawn, I used to march out
25:11
Speaker 1: in full rig and go off to a place where
25:14
Speaker 1: I could see the channel in which the Ocean Pioneer
25:16
Speaker 1: lay sunk, and once even one moonlight night, I tried
25:20
Speaker 1: to walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks
25:23
Speaker 1: and dark clean beat me. I didn't get back till
25:27
Speaker 1: full day. And then I found all those silly niggers
25:30
Speaker 1: out on the beach praying their sea God to return
25:33
Speaker 1: to them. I was that vexed and tired, messing and
25:37
Speaker 1: tumbling about and coming up and going down again. I
25:41
Speaker 1: could have punched their silly heads all round when they
25:43
Speaker 1: started rejoicing, hanged if I liked so much ceremony. And
25:48
Speaker 1: then came the missionary. That missionary, what sir guy gummy.
25:54
Speaker 1: It was in the afternoon, and I was sitting in
25:56
Speaker 1: state in my outer temple place, sitting on that old
25:59
Speaker 1: block black stone of theirs. When he came. I heard
26:02
Speaker 1: a row outside and jabbering, and then his voice speaking
26:06
Speaker 1: to an interpreter. They worship stocks and stones, he said,
26:10
Speaker 1: and I knew what was up in a flash. I
26:12
Speaker 1: had one of my windows out for comfort, and I
26:15
Speaker 1: sang out straight away on the spur of the moment,
26:18
Speaker 1: stocks and stones, I says, You come inside, I says,
26:21
Speaker 1: and I'll punch a bloomy in exitter hall of a head.
26:24
Speaker 1: There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, And
26:27
Speaker 1: in he came bible in hand, after the manner of them,
26:31
Speaker 1: a little sandy chap in specks and a pith helmet.
26:34
Speaker 1: I flattened myself. That me, sitting there in the shadows
26:37
Speaker 1: with my copper head and my big goggles, struck him
26:40
Speaker 1: a bit of a heap at first. Well, I says,
26:44
Speaker 1: how's the trade in scissors? For I don't hold with missionaries.
26:48
Speaker 1: I had a lark with that missionary. He was a
26:50
Speaker 1: raw hand, and quite outclasped by a man like me.
26:54
Speaker 1: He gasped out who was I? And I told him
26:56
Speaker 1: to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted
26:59
Speaker 1: to know. There wasn't no inscription, why should there be?
27:02
Speaker 1: But down he goes to read, And his interpreter, being
27:06
Speaker 1: of course as superstitious as any of them, more so
27:09
Speaker 1: by reason of his seeing missionary close too, took it
27:13
Speaker 1: for an act of worship, and plumped down like a shot.
27:16
Speaker 1: All my people gave a howl of triumph, and there
27:19
Speaker 1: wasn't any more business to be done in my village
27:22
Speaker 1: after that journey, not by the likes of him. But
27:26
Speaker 1: of course I was a fool to choke him off
27:28
Speaker 1: like that. If I'd had any sense, I should have
27:31
Speaker 1: told him straight away of the treasure and taken him
27:33
Speaker 1: into cow. I've no doubt he'd have come into co
27:37
Speaker 1: A child with a few hours to think it over,
27:39
Speaker 1: could have seen the connection between my diving dress and
27:43
Speaker 1: the loss of the Ocean Pioneer. A week after he left,
27:47
Speaker 1: I went out one morning and saw the Motherhood the
27:50
Speaker 1: Salver's ship from star Race towing up the channel and
27:54
Speaker 1: sounding the whole blessed game was up, and all my
27:58
Speaker 1: trouble thrown away. Gummy, how wild I felt, and guying
28:02
Speaker 1: it in that stinking silly dress. Four months the sun
28:08
Speaker 1: burnt Man's story degenerated again. Think of it, he said,
28:13
Speaker 1: when he emerged to linguistic purity once more, forty thousand
28:18
Speaker 1: pounds worth of gold. Did the little missionary come back?
28:22
Speaker 1: I asked, Oh, yes, bless him, and he pledged his reputation.
28:26
Speaker 1: There was a man inside the god and started out
28:29
Speaker 1: to see as much with tremendous ceremony. But wasn't he
28:32
Speaker 1: got sold again. I always did hate scenes and explanations,
28:37
Speaker 1: and long before he came I was out of it all,
28:39
Speaker 1: going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes
28:43
Speaker 1: by day and thieving food from the villages by night.
28:46
Speaker 1: Only weapon, a spear, no clothes, no money, nothing my face,
28:51
Speaker 1: my fortune, as the saying is, and just a squeak
28:55
Speaker 1: of eight thousand pounds of gold fifth share. But the
28:58
Speaker 1: natives cut up Rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it
29:02
Speaker 1: was him that had driven their luck away. End of
29:06
Speaker 1: Section twenty three.