Carter found a brace and bit--an inch twist bit, which for a wonder was in a calabash of yellow palm oil, and so not rusty--and he worked on these carved men till the sweat ran from him. Laura came out and told him that he was inviting an attack of fever, which was obvious, since by then it was high noon, and violent exertion for a white man with the thermometer above par always has to be paid for on the Coast. But he drove her back again into the house and out of the heat with a volley of chaff, and went gaspingly on with his tremendous work. The mouths of the figures were wide, but with knife and drill he splayed them wider, but was careful always not to distort them beyond the canons of local art; and in a couple of hours' time he was ready for White-Man's-Trouble and the heavy coils of lead piping. "Regard," he said, "O thou assistant to the great white ju-ju man. We will place one of these graven images opposite the entrance of each road which comes from the bush into this factory clearing. We'll hoist it up onto a green gin box, so, and give it a bit more height and dignity. And we'll add a necklace of these green cigarette tins, which have already advertised themselves into an ugly notoriety. Then, into this hole you see in the back of each image, we will fit an end of lead piping, and as the holes are tapered, the unions will make themselves good. Then, O helper of dark schemes, we'll pay out the coil, as far as possible in swamp where it will sink out of sight, and bring all the ends into the house here. Any piping that shows, you must throw earth over. Savvy? And the inside ends we'll splay out with this hardwood cone that I've made, till a man can get his mouth well into them and shout down the tube comfortably. I'm sure you catch the idea?" "Oh, Carter, I plenty-too-much afraid. Presently I lib for die." "Not you. If I see any signs of your starting to fade away, I'll whack you into life again with a piece of board with two nails in it. Wherefore, O feared of the uninitiated, buck up, and get a shovel, and cover that lead out of sight where it shows. Afterwards I'll show you the working of that early British contrivance, an office speaking-tube. That is, if we have time for a rehearsal, but by the extra big dot-dashing of those monkey-skin drums just now, it rather looks as if we shall have the next act of this play crowding down on us without much more interval." The burned warriors had not, it appeared, retreated very far. Their spiritual advisers, the ju-ju men, had by King Kallee's orders been waiting not very far away down the several bush roads; and when presently fugitives began to come trotting in through the steamy forest shades, these ecclesiastics rallied them, and when enough were collected, they commenced a "custom" for the renewal of the soldier's bravery.