This Is A Topic On Which They Will Always Speak With
Eagerness, And If They Can Fancy That You, Too,
Take an interest in
such matters, they will not only think you perfectly sane, but will
begin to give you
Credit for some more than human powers of forcing
the obscure earth to show you its hoards of gold.
When we returned to Baffa, the vice-consul seized a club with the
quietly determined air of a brave man resolved to do some deed of
note. He went into the yard adjoining his cottage, where there
were some thin, thoughtful, canting cocks, and serious, low-church-
looking hens, respectfully listening, and chickens of tender years
so well brought up, as scarcely to betray in their conduct the
careless levity of youth. The vice-consul stood for a moment quite
calm, collecting his strength; then suddenly he rushed into the
midst of the congregation, and began to deal death and destruction
on all sides. He spared neither sex nor age; the dead and dying
were immediately removed from the field of slaughter, and in less
than an hour, I think, they were brought on the table, deeply
buried in mounds of snowy rice.
My host was in all respects a fine, generous fellow. I could not
bear the idea of impoverishing him by my visit, and I consulted my
faithful Mysseri, who not only assured me that I might safely offer
money to the vice-consul, but recommended that I should give no
more to him than to "the others," meaning any other peasant.
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