been dead and
just come out of grave, or anything you like. No matter if you turn up
as announced on bill and God bless hurricane that blow us here when we
expect die. Come, Major, quick, quick! mist melt and soon they see you."
Then without waiting for an answer Jeekie clapped the wet mask on his
master's head, tied the thongs and led Alan to the prow of the canoe,
where he set him down on a little cross bench, stood behind supporting
him and again began to sing in a great triumphant voice.

The mist cleared away, rolling up like a curtain and revealing on the
shore a number of men and women clad in white robes, who were martialled
in ranks there, chanting and staring out at the dim waters of the
lagoon. Yonder upon the waters, driven forward by the gentle breeze,
floated a canoe and lo! in the prow of that canoe sat a white man and
on his head the god which they had lost a whole generation gone. On
the head of a white man it had departed; on the head of a white man it
returned. They saw and fell upon their knees.

"Blow, Major, blow!" whispered Jeekie, and Alan blew a feeble note
through the whistle in the mouth of the mask. It was enough, they knew
it. They sprang into the water and dragged the canoe to land. They set
Alan on the shore and worshipped him. They haled up a lad as though for
sacrifice, for a priest flourished a great knife above his head, but
Jeekie said something that caused them to let him go. Alan thought it
was to the effect that Little Bonsa had changed her habits across the
Black Water, and wanted no blood, only food. Then he remembered no more;
again the darkness fell upon him.

CHAPTER X

BONSA TOWN

When consciousness returned to Alan, the first thing of which he became
dimly aware was the slow, swaying motion of a litter. He raised himself,
for he was lying at full length, and in so doing felt that there was
something over his face.

"That confounded Little Bonsa," he thought. "Am I expected to spend the
rest of my life with it on my head like the man in the iron mask?"

Then he put up his hand and felt the thing, to find that it was not
Little Bonsa, but something made apparently of thin, fine linen, fitted
to the shape of his face, for there was a nose on it, and eyeholes
through which he could see, yes, and a mouth whereof the lips by some
ingenious contrivance could be moved up and down.

"Little Bonsa's undress uniform, I expect," he muttered, and tried to
drag it off. This