The first landfall I made was when I got through the bush of wild cocoanuts,and came in view of the bogies on the wall.Mighty queer they looked by the shining of the lantern,with their painted faces and shell eyes,and their clothes and their hair hanging.
One after another I pulled them all up and piled them in a bundle on the cellar roof,so as they might go to glory with the rest.
Then I chose a place behind one of the big stones at the entrance,buried my powder and the two shells,and arranged my match along the passage.And then I had a look at the smoking head,just for good-bye.It was doing fine.
"Cheer up,"says I."You're booked."
It was my first idea to light up and be getting homeward;for the darkness and the glimmer of the dead wood and the shadows of the lantern made me lonely.But I knew where one of the harps hung;it seemed a pity it shouldn't go with the rest;and at the same time Icouldn't help letting on to myself that I was mortal tired of my employment,and would like best to be at home and have the door shut.I stepped out of the cellar and argued it fore and back.
There was a sound of the sea far down below me on the coast;nearer hand not a leaf stirred;I might have been the only living creature this side of Cape Horn.Well,as I stood there thinking,it seemed the bush woke and became full of little noises.Little noises they were,and nothing to hurt -a bit of a crackle,a bit of a rush -but the breath jumped right out of me and my throat went as dry as a biscuit.It wasn't Case I was afraid of,which would have been common-sense;I never thought of Case;what took me,as sharp as the colic,was the old wives'tales,the devil-women and the man-pigs.It was the toss of a penny whether I should run:but I got a purchase on myself,and stepped out,and held up the lantern (like a fool)and looked all round.
In the direction of the village and the path there was nothing to be seen;but when I turned inland it's a wonder to me I didn't drop.There,coming right up out of the desert and the bad bush -there,sure enough,was a devil-woman,just as the way I had figured she would look.I saw the light shine on her bare arms and her bright eyes,and there went out of me a yell so big that Ithought it was my death.