But the king looked frightened, and shook his head.
"The wine," said Frank, and Duncan produced it. He poured some out into a little tin cup and drank, then corked the bottle.
"Goo--goo--goo!" exclaimed the king, excitedly.
"Why, the old rogue," said Duncan, "knows what it is. Let him smell the bottle."
"Confound him, no! He'd seize and drink the lot."
But he handed him some in a cocoa-nut shell, and having gulped that down, he handed the shell back to be refilled.
He now offered the beads and the bottle for the diamond, and at once the cannibal yielded.
He waddled over towards the god, and digging out the glorious gem with the point of an ugly crease--which doubtless had slit many an innocent throat--he handed it to the financier, Frank Trelawney.
Frank first put it carefully in his pocket, then he proceeded to insert three beautiful and large beads in the hole in the god's forehead, left empty by the abstraction of the gem.
"Don't be a big baby! You'll have the wine in a brace of shakes".
Determined to be honest, Frank not only placed a string of beads about the neck of the idol, but a larger and more handsome one over the king's broad brisket. Then he gave him nutful after nutful of sherry till there wasn't a drop left in the bottle.
His song was like the snoring of an Indian frog. But the king was happy.
"I say, Duncan," he said, "a knowledge of finance is an excellent thing. And honesty is the best policy, isn't it? Well, we've made one man happy this morning. It is very soothing to one's conscience, and really, Duncan, I wouldn't mind making a few more cannibals happy--"
The king slept, and, leaving his wives to fan him, the boys slipped away.
They now went back "home", as they called the haunted fort, then arranged for a day's sport.
The stream they soon reached was close to the forest, and seemed alive with fish. The tackle which they used was simple but effective. Not original either, for country boys in Scotland constantly use it, and though the marvellously-dressed and fully-equipped Englishman may fish all day and catch nothing, the ragged urchin not far off is making a string of dozens--a string that the Cockney eventually purchases and palms off as the result of his own prowess.