business in their heads to keep the Devil out of it.
The monk-foreman is reading with one eye and watching with the other. “Work,” cries he, “every minute wasted is stolen from the abbey. And whoso steals, look in the pit: its fire is nothing compared with Jahannam.” And the argument serves its purpose. The labourers hurry hither and thither, bringing brushwood near; the first stoker pitches to the second, the second to the third, and he feeds the flaming, smoking, coruscating volcano. “ Yallah! ” (Keep it up) exclaims the monk-foreman. “Burn the devil’s creed,” cries one. “Burn hell,” cries another. And thus jesting in earnest, mightily working and enduring, they burn the mountains into lime, they make the very rocks yield somewhat.—Strength and blessings, brothers.
After the usual inquiry of whence and whither, his monkship offers the snuffbox. “No? roll you, then, a cigarette,” taking out a plush pouch containing a mixture of the choicest native roots. These, we were told, are grown on the monastery’s estate. We speak of the cocoon products of the season.