“You settled it, anyway,” suggested Ella. “You were the Bismarck of what’s-its-name?” “I doubled the parts of Bismarck and Von Moltke,” said he. “And that’s why they worshiped you as their god? I don’t wonder at the heathen in his blindness doing that. Any man who was the same as Bismarck and Von Moltke would certainly shoulder a deity out of his way,” laughed Ella. “It so happened, however, that my deification was due neither to my recognition as a diplomatist nor as a military strategist,” said the explorer. “No, they wanted something beyond the mere fighting man to worship, and my knowledge of that fact combined with their paeans of victory--to the _obbligato_ of a solid iron-wood drum beaten with the thigh bones of the conquered--to keep me awake at night. But one morning the headman came upon me when I was about to boil my kettle to make myself a cup of tea. I had a small lamp that burned spirits, and he stood by while I filled it up from the bottle that I carried with me. He took it for granted that the spirit was water, and he was greatly impressed when he saw it flare up as I applied a lighted match to it. He asked me if I possessed the power to set water in a blaze, and I assured him that that was something for which I had long been celebrated; adding that when I had had my breakfast I meant to while away an hour or two by setting fire to the ocean itself. He implored of me to reconsider my decision, and when I had poured a little spirit into the hollow of my hand and lighted it in the presence of his most eminent scientists, they said that they also desired to associate themselves with the headman’s petition. I was, however, inexorable; I walked down to the beach and had just struck a match on the brink of the ocean when the whole tribe prostrated themselves around me, promising to continue worshiping me if I would only stay my hand. Well, what could I do? I weakly yielded and spared the multitudinous sea from being the medium of what would in all likelihood have been the greatest conflagration on record. From that moment, I’m happy to say, they worshiped me as their supreme deity, and I’m bound to say that I behaved as such; I was certainly the most superior class of god they had ever had, and they gave me a testimonial to this effect in case I might ever be looking out for a new situation.” “That was how you managed to get such a collection of birds, including my meteor-bird,” said Ella. “But Phyllis of Philistia is shocked at the bare recital of such a tale of idolatry. Are you not, Phyllis?” “I think I am a little shocked,” said Phyllis. She did not say that her first thought just then was that the feather fan was not, after all, the price of blood: it was something much worse. “It was an encouragement of idolatry, was it not, Mr. Courtland?” “Scarcely,” said he. “On the contrary, it was an honest attempt to lead them from their idols to something higher and better.” “You are something higher and better,” suggested Ella.