he village,
seeking any blasphemer who dared to look upon sacred things; banging on
hut doors and shaking thatches, the more to terrify the shrinking
inhabitants.

Without the gate of the old enclosure all remained, except Bakahenzie and
the four wizards who encircled Kawa Kendi and Kingata Mata and hustled
them across the clearing. With his back to the dim form of the idol stood
Kawa Kendi as behind it grouped the master magicians. From the base
Bakahenzie took two large gourds and gave them into the keeping of Kingata
Mata.

Came an abrupt cessation of the drums and cries. The wailing of the women
behind the temple died. The tense air pulsed with electricity. A cock
crowed feebly in the village. Then at a rippling splash of the drums and
the sudden screaming of the wizards, they began to push the idol. The base
had already been loosened in the earth by the slaves. The idol began to
totter. Louder screeched the magicians; faster fled the drums. Slowly the
idol leaned and subsided on to the shoulders of Kawa Kendi. Grasping the
mass firmly upon his bent back, he bore the burden out of the enclosure
and down the hill.

Behind his unsteady steps pranced and yelled the doctors with more
prodigious a noise than ever before as they scourged the King's legs and
arms with cords of fibre. Through the listening village panted the King.
As he gasped slowly up the hill the thrashing was redoubled. But into the
new enclosure the King staggered, let slide the heavy mass into a hole
prepared for the sacred feet and, gleaming blue points of sweat in the
faint moon, let out a hoarse yell, proving to the assembly of magicians
and chiefs that he was powerful enough to bear the burden of the world and
moreover that none could wrest his office from him.

No time was given for the incarnation of a god to recoup from his labours.
The motive principle of the accusation and for the death of the king was
the drought. That only concerned the soul of the tribe in the person of
Bakahenzie. For him and his brothers of the inner cult, while certain
pretensions of power over the supernatural were for the "good of the
people," the truths of magic and divine functions were inviolable. The
person of Kawa Kendi, heretofore merely one in whom was a potentiality,
became after the purification and "coronation" the very incarnation of the
god. Kawa Kendi had crossed from the comparative safe haven of the
potential into divine activity.

Also there were