Beside a leaf-point flame of peanut-oil,
a broad, squat giant sat stiff and still against the opposite wall, and
stared with cruel, unblinking eyes. If the stranger were the first white
man to enter, this motionless grim janitor gave no sign. On the earthen
floor lay a small circle of white lime. Heywood placed his right foot
inside it.
"We are all in-the-circle men."
"Pass," said the guard.
Out from shadow glided a tall native with a halberd, who opened a door
in the far corner.
In the second room, dim as the first, burned the same smoky orange light
on the same table. But here a twisted cripple, his nose long and
pendulous with elephantiasis, presided over three cups of tea set in a
row. Heywood lifted the central cup, and drank.
"Will you bite the clouds?" asked the second guard, in a soft and husky
bass. As he spoke, the great nose trembled slightly.
"No, I will bite ginger," replied the white man.
"Why is your face so green?"
"It is a melon-face--a green face with a red heart."
"Pass," said the cripple, gently. He pulled a cord--the nose quaking
with this exertion--and opened the third door.
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