ere left, assembled within the circle of fires. Squatted
in the prescribed order they eyed the figure of Bakahenzie in his red and
green feathers mumbling incantations with doubt and disfavour. Indeed
Bakahenzie seemed to them the symbol of the fallen god and a past regime;
impotent and as mistaken as they were. In each and every one of them were
suspicions and fears growing like weeds in tropic rain that he had made an
error in not propitiating the new god in time, an impulse which required
but a few hours' growth to propel them out to the north-east after
Sakamata and the others.

As they watched in silence Bakahenzie was aware of the state of their
minds towards him and grew the more perplexed in his search for an
entertainment sufficiently stimulating to postpone the effects of their
discontent. Sapiently he decided that any more messages from Tarum would
be unwise in the present atmosphere. An idea of a revelation by divination
to appoint a substitute for Bakuma as the Bride of the Banana and thus
thrust forward a reason for a feast, as there was now no Yabolo to object,
was abandoned because such an orgy was exclusive to the craft and would
serve to exasperate the lay chiefs.

His resource suggested a method. Suddenly he uttered a piercing yell and
fell sideways as in the manner of one about to receive a communication
from Tarum; but instead of the habitual seizure and cries and groans he
lay rigid and silent. The divergence from the usual distracted the doubts
of the audience.

The fires flickered and danced to the insectile anthem as for twenty
minutes or more he lay there as one dead. But at the first flutter of
inattention among the doctors he sat up with closed eyes and called out in
a loud voice:

"That which is and must be, shall be!"

Intuitively he had followed the precept of witch-doctors the world over of
saying nothing at all in such a way that as many interpretations may be
deduced as there are listeners. Each and every doctor and chief
accordingly saw in these mystic words, as Marufa had done in the chance
phrase of Moonspirit, that which he was most urged to do. Bakahenzie had
accomplished his temporary object. Once more he cried out:

"Let the children of the Banana be as the wild-cat at the fishpool that
that which I have prophesied may come to pass!"

The charging of the air with the familiar suggestion of magical doings
gripped the audience and forced from them the conventional grunt of