I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image,
feeling but ill at ease meantime--to see what was next to follow.
First he takes about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket,
and places them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship
biscuit on top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled
the shavings into a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty
snatches into the fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers
(whereby he seemed to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded
in drawing out the biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes
a little, he made a polite offer of it to the little negro.
But the little devil did not seem to fancy such dry sort of fare at all;
he never moved his lips. All these strange antics were accompanied
by still stranger guttural noises from the devotee, who seemed to be
praying in a sing-song or else singing some pagan psalmody or other,
during which his face twitched about in the most unnatural manner.
At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol up very unceremoniously,
and bagged it again in his grego pocket as carelessly as if he were
a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness,
and seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding
his business operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought
it was high time, now or never, before the light was put out,
to break the spell in which I had so long been bound.

But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one.
Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it
for an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth
at the handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke.