new god had received them as brothers and had
made offerings to them as was the custom for strangers to do. It was true,
he admitted in cross-examination, that whole villages had been put to the
sword and burned; but, he demanded, was not that the way of a mighty
warrior to those who resisted him?

Moreover, continued Sakamata, to fight him was death. His magic was such
that no man could prevail against him. Had any doctor yet succeeded in
making successful magic against the Invincible One? His magic was terrible
to behold. Spirits which were imprisoned in houses of trees (boxes) spoke
and sang according to their tribe.

"Clk!" commented Zalu Zako incredulously.

"These words are as the wind in the trees at night speaking to girls,"
commented Marufa slowly. "What man hath beheld those things with his own
eyes?"

Deliberately Sakamata tapped snuff, inhaled it with relish, meticulously,
that not one grain was lost upon his white caterpillar moustache, and said
indifferently:

"Even he who sits before you."

"Eh!"

Another point was scored. But both Zalu Zako and Marufa regarded him as
one who, having had dealings with the devil and yet had emerged safely,
was to be suspected of some ghastly pact. After a calculated pause
Sakamata continued nonchalantly:

"There is no magic like unto Eyes-in-the-hands, the Mighty One. A great
fort hath he made upon the hill of thy grandfather (MFunya MPopo), O Zalu
Zako, girded with a great palisade, around which walk ever the red devils
in uniform, each one of whom hath a gun with seven voices. And peering
through that palisade, like a terrible black leopard from his lair, are
the monster coughing devils. Eh! who are they who can withstand them?"

"Eh!" echoed his audience with lively memories of the "coughing devils."

"And he hath a mighty hut made from the white man's cloth of colour like
to the forest full of things to make magic. Seated upon his chair like
unto a man plucking bananas, the eyes upon his hands and in his head gleam
so fiercely that water is made within a man. He who dares to look sees not
only Eyes-in-the-hands, but his two souls, even as thou seest thine own
two souls staring at thee with the frightened eyes that are thine!"

"Ehh!"

This time a genuine belly grunt was elicited, and even Marufa moved
uneasily.

"Thou hast been bewitched," he added to mask his astonishment. "For a man
may see his own soul in any pool, but never two souls!"

"Even is