status really was,
his position at their head.

Upon his haunches before a large calabash upon a fire Bakahenzie finished
the mumbling of incantations over the sacred ingredients, and leaping to
his feet began a wild dance to the throb of the drums and the
diaphragmatic chorus of the assembled cult.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Swifter and swifter spun the
chief witch-doctor. The glow of the fire tinted his whirling bronze body
with flecks of green and red as he gyrated in and out of the shadows.
Suddenly he threw a handful of herbs upon the fire which was immediately
enveloped in a cloud of smoke, into which with a screech Bakahenzie
disappeared.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} The drums and grunting ceased. Then in the swirling column
of blue appeared his figure holding something in his hands. To the wild
outburst of drums and groans he sprang towards the King-God elect and
anointed his breast and shoulders with a pungent compound, and leaped away
into another dance, while Mungongo plied the two fire sticks. When the
spark was blown upon the dry tinder and the first flame flickered
Bakahenzie dropped flat before the gate as from the wizards went up the
great shout:

"The fire is lighted!"

And from the mass of warriors and folk confined to their huts behind the
outer palisade the phrase was echoed in a mighty wail, startling monkeys
and parrots into as wild an acclamation of the new King-God.

Bakahenzie, rising to his haunches, began a chant in honour of the new
King, a chant based upon the song composed by Marufa and repeated on the
phonograph, but developing even stranger merits and attributes. Until the
first glimmer of dawn through the forest roof squatted Birnier, as
motionless as etiquette demanded, listening to the strange psalm of praise
with avid interest and observation.

Suddenly, amid a furious clamour of the drums, Bakahenzie, Marufa, and one
other of the inner cult of the five who had not deserted, led the body of
the doctors in a rush into the sacred enclosure, seized upon the startled
King and hustled him to the base of the idol where, yielding to the
whispered instructions of Marufa, he took the idol once more upon his
shoulders and guided by Bakahenzie, walked out of the gate and through the
village to the yelling and screaming of the wizards, some of whom,
according to precedent, ran about screeching and rattling hut doors,
pulling thatches and howling ferociously in search of any sacrilegious
peeper.

As