Yabolo
repeated the message from the spirit of Tarum.

"Let thy spear be made sharp, O son of MBusa, that we may make the jackal
who would command the lion to eat offal!" MYalu grunted. "The son of
Bayakala saith that it will be soon, so that thou mayest yet eat of thy
defiler ere thou art gone to ghostland." MYalu turned his head. "The son
of MTungo and the son of Maliko," explained the old man, "have made magic
upon the parts which thou didst foolishly leave within thy hut."

Again MYalu merely grunted and turned away his head. But that dread news
had quenched the white flame of anger. The spirits were wroth; even had
they caused him to eat the dust before all men. Conviction in the efficacy
of the magic for which he would have bought Marufa to make against Zalu
Zako was as absolute as his faith in the death magic made against him by
the two powerful witch-doctors, and intensified by the miraculous return
of the Unmentionable One against whom he had committed sacrilege. He
recollected the cry of the Baroto bird on the night on which he had
kidnapped the Bride of the Banana. The spirit of Tarum was wroth. The
mighty new King-God of the Unmentionable One was about to eat up all the
enemies of the land. MYalu was convinced that he was doomed; certain that
Yabolo knew that he was doomed; that every man knew that he was doomed.

For ten minutes the figures, squatting and lying, remained as motionless
as bronzes. Then MYalu rose to his knees and said calmly: "Give me thy
sword, O son of Zingala."

Silently Yabolo handed him the sword which MYalu placed beneath him and
laid down again. So quietly he died.

From the sacred hill blared the harsh cry of the yellow bird, as the
natives called the trumpet, announcing that the august presence was in
audience. But instead of the usual crowd of immobile figures squatted
almost under the shadow of the pom-pom within the gate of the fort, sat
only the messenger. Sakamata, knowing that something portended and yet not
exactly what, was so scared that his skinny limbs quivered as if with an
ague. Although he desired to warn Eyes-in-the-hands in order to save
himself, he dared not attempt to do so lest the august one visit his anger
upon his person; vague ideas of redeeming his treachery by delivering
Eyes-in-the-hands over to his countrymen were stoppered by terror of the
wrath of the Unmentionable One.

So it was that the pomp of the Son-of-the-Earthquake and the glory of the
soul