the lightning in a bag
which he looses at will. Who could withstand him? Had they better not
submit before his wrath had eaten them all up? E-eh! man cannot fight with
a god, as any fool knows.

They were returning to their homes to make pilgrimage to the new god, to
propitiate him with oxen and with ivory lest worse befall. However they
knew where Zalu Zako was hidden, also the wizards whose magic was as a
drop of water in a fire. Mungongo did not fail to relate the marvels of
Moonspirit which he had seen with his own eyes, he and those with him. The
warriors listened without being in the least impressed. That, said they,
was merely woman's magic to what Eyes-in-the-hands could do! Aie-e! had
not they fallen dead in masses at the cough of one of his monster spirits!
Aie-e! had not the look of him burned up the Unmentionable One as a straw
in a fire! Therefore was he not greater than the god? Aie-e! was he not
burning their villages at will! Aie-e, brothers, they must hasten to
appease the wrath of so terrible a god!

Birnier saw that it was useless to attempt to argue with them. Zu
Pfeiffer, with his shrewd stroke at the kernel of their faith in the
symbol of the idol, had established a kind of godhead; and by his
ferocious massacres had thoroughly cowed them. However Birnier secured one
man to guide him to where Zalu Zako, the witch-doctors and those who
remained with him, were in hiding.

On the fringe of the dense forest they camped. The warrior guide went to
acquaint Zalu Zako of their approach, else otherwise the sight of a white
might provoke an attempt at massacre or flight. On the third day the man
returned bearing greetings from Zalu Zako personally who remembered well
Infunyana, the only white man whom he had ever met.

For two days, on a faint trail, in a steamy heat pulsing with chromatic
birds and lizards, they journeyed through the forest, the skirts of the
vast Ituri whose deepest recess is the home of the pygmy. One early
forenoon they were halted by the warrior in apparently trackless jungle
and bidden to camp. Mungongo was indignant, but protest was useless as the
man refused to conduct them any farther, saying that Zalu Zako would come
to them. So the carriers cut a circle and built a zareba and the messenger
was swallowed by the green wall bearing presents of two rifles.

CHAPTER 14

About a mile from Birnier's camp, through forest so dense that even th