-land, Major?" asked Jeekie, who had followed him
and was now leaning against a wall fanning himself feebly with his great
hand. "Funny place, isn't it, Major? I tell you so before you come, but
you no believe me."

"Very funny," answered Alan, "so funny that I want to get out."

"Ah! Major, that what eel say in trap where he go after lob-worm, but he
only get out into frying pan after cook skin him alive-o. Ah! here come
cook--I mean Asika. She only stop shut up those stiff 'uns, who all love
lob-worm one day. Very pretty woman, Asika, but thank God she not set
cap at me, who like to be buried in open like Christian man."

"If you don't stop it, Jeekie," replied Alan in a concentrated rage,
"I'll see that you are buried just where you are."

"No offence, Major, no offence, my heart full and bubble up. I wonder
what Miss Barbara say if she see you mooing and cooing with dark-eyed
girl in gold snake skin?"

Just then the Asika arrived and by way of excuse for his flight, Alan
remarked to her that the treasure-hall was hot.

"I did not notice it," she answered, "but he who is called my husband,
Mungana, says the same. The Mungana is guardian of the dead," she
explained, "and when he is required so to do, he sleeps in the Place of
the Treasure and gathers wisdom from the spirits of those Munganas who
were before him."

"Indeed. And does he like that bed-chamber?"

"The Mungana likes what I like, not what he likes," she replied
haughtily. "Where I send him to sleep, there he sleeps. But come,
Vernoon, and I will show you the Holy Water where Big Bonsa dwells; also
the house in which I have my home, where you shall visit me when you
please."

"Who built this place?" asked Alan as she led him through more dark and
tortuous passages. "It is very great."

"My spirit does not remember when it was built, Vernoon, so old is it,
but I think that the Asiki were once a big and famous people who traded
to the water upon the west, and even to the water on the east, and that
was how those white men became their slaves and the Munganas of their
queens. Now they are small and live only by the might and fame of Big
and Little Bonsa, not half filling the rich land which is theirs. But,"
she added reflectively and looking at him, "I think also that this is
because in the past fools have been thrust upon my spirit as Munganas.
What it needs is the wisdom of the white man, such wisdom as yours,
Vernoon. If that were added to my mag