orm of the magic of purification. A chief though he
be; he dared not slay a magician. He sought Marufa and found him as usual
squatting on his threshold contemplating infinity in a mud wall. He
saluted Marufa politely, choking back words of bitter recrimination, for
if he even offended him, the wizard might cast a spell upon him instantly.
Marufa returned the greeting as courteously as ever. When at length MYalu
reproachfully reminded him of the seven tusks which he had paid apparently
to secure his love's terrible fate, Marufa replied uninterestedly:

"I have done that for which thou hast paid."

"What man buyeth a bride for another?" retorted MYalu.

"When I did make magic upon 'the things' did I place in the power of the
spirits the owner. Behold, hath not the owner of 'the things' been
accursed?"

"Ehh!" gasped MYalu. "But how may that be? Didst thou not thyself take the
paring and the hair?"

"I bade the One who is tabu to bring them that he might be bewitched to
her girdle. She thought to deceive me by bringing that which was of
herself."

"E--eh!" muttered MYalu, impressed at the awful effect of deceiving a
wizard. Marufa continued to stare. MYalu meditated ruefully.

"But the tusks," murmured MYalu at length dismally.

"It is not I who have two tongues," responded Marufa indifferently.

And with that MYalu had to rest content. Marufa indeed had no interest at
all in the passions of Zalu Zako, MYalu and Bakuma. Merely the time had
come for the witch-doctors to choose the victim for the Harvest Festival:
Bakuma was young and good looking, a dainty morsel that should please the
taste of the officiating doctors, and her owner and uncle was a man of no
importance: so accordingly he had made known the sin of her name through
the divination.

In the solitude of his own hut upon the hill Zalu Zako sat and pondered
sulkily. His young and fierce temper was stimulated and the seed of
rebellion against the domination of the priesthood was quickened by the
fate of his new love; although the masonic secrets of the craft were
denied to him, he, as son of the royal house, was suspicious of the powers
of the Unmentionable One and the priesthood, as many an one had been
before him; yet in spite of that the verdict was absolute, for he was too
crushed by terror of the consequences to permit of any hope of annulling
it.

The fiat not only doomed Bakuma to a terrible death at the third blooming
of the moon, but from tha