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“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day.”

Nesbit drew from Revelation 3:16, which in the King James Bible says, “So then because thou art lukewarm … I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

Matthew's stargazing wise men would thus have been "spued out of the mouth" of the Jewish Jehovah.

They tried to spue out their bits and covered them with foam, as if rebellious, yet submitted to the will of the riders.

They belong to the large Laodicean lukewarm class, of whom he who sought their allegiance said he would "spue them out of his mouth."