ng, wondered, for I
knew not what was going to follow. Suddenly the King looked up.

"Enough of your bellowings, ye snakes, ye wizard cheats!" he thundered.
"I have a mind to send ye all into this Ghost Valley, to slay the thing
or be slain by it. Say; why are ye not ridding me of this evil thing
which has crept into the nation?"

"That is to be done, Ruler of the World!" cried the chief of the
_izanusi_. "That is to be done; but the evil-doer is great--great!"

"The evil-doer is great--great!" howled the others, in response.

"Find him, then, jackals, impostors!" roared the King. "_Whau_! Since
old Masuka passed into the spirit-land never an _izanusi_ have we known.
Only a crowd of bellowing jackal-faced impostors."

For, _Nkose_, old Masuka was dead. He had died at a great age, and had
been buried with sacrifices of cattle as though one of our greatest
chiefs. In him, too, I had lost a friend, but of that have I more to
tell.

Now some of the _izanusi_ dived in among the crowd and returned dragging
along several men. These crawled up until near the King, and lay
trembling, their eyes starting from their heads with fear. And now, for
the first time, a strange and boding feeling came over me, as I
recognised in these some of the Bakoni, who had been at a distance when
we stamped flat that disobedient race, and had since been spared and
allowed to live among us as servants.

"Well, dogs! What have ye to say?" quoth the King. "Speak, and that
quickly, for my patience today is short."

_Whau! Nkose_! They did speak, indeed, those dogs. They told how the
Red Death was no new thing--at least to them--for periodically it was
wont to make its appearance among the Bakoni. When it did so, it
presaged the succession of a new chief; indeed, just such a
manifestation had preluded the accession to the supreme chieftainship of
Tauane, whom we had burned amid the ashes of his own town. The Red
Death was among the darker mysteries of the Bakoni _muti_.

Not all at once did this tale come out, _Nkose_, but bit by bit, and
then only when the Great Great One had threatened them with the
alligators--even the stake of impalement--if they kept back aught. And
I--I listening--_Hau_! My blood seemed first to freeze, then to boil
within me, as I saw through the ending of that tale. The darker
mysteries of the Bakoni _muti_!--preluding the accession of a new king?
The countenance of the Great Great One grew black as