Wow! Wow! and doctors pick
out those to die that month. Once they pick out Jeekie, oh! good Lord,
they pick out _me_," and as he said the words he gasped and with his
great hand wiped off the sweat that started from his brow. "But Yellow
God no take Jeekie that time, no want him and I escape."

"How?" asked Sir Robert.

"With my master, Major's uncle, Reverend Austin, he who come try to make
Asiki Christian. He snap his fingers, put on small mask of Yellow God
which he prig, Little Bonsa herself, that same face which sit in your
office now," and he pointed to Sir Robert, "like one toad upon a stone.
Priests think that god make herself into man, want holiday, take me out
into forest to kill me and eat my life. So they let us go by and we go
just as though devil kick us--fast, fast, and never see the Asiki any
more. But Little Bonsa I bring with me for luck, tell truth I no dare
leave her behind, she not stand that; and now she sit in your office and
think and think and make magic there. That why you grow rich, because
she know you worship her."

"That's a nice way for a baptized Christian to talk," said Barbara,
adding, "But Jeekie, what do you mean when you say that the god did not
take you?"

"I mean this, miss; when victim offered to Big Yellow God, priest-men
bring him to edge of canal where the great god float. Then if Yellow God
want him, it turn and swim across water."

"Swim across water! I thought you said it was only a mask of gold?"

"I don't know, miss, perhaps man inside the mask, perhaps spirit. I say
it swim across water in the night, always in the night, and lift
itself up and look in victim's face. Then priest take him and kill him,
sometimes one way--sometimes another. Or if he escape and they not kill
him, all same for that Johnnie, he die in about one year, always die,
no one ever live long if Yellow God swim to him in dark and rise up and
smile in his face. No matter if it Big Bonsa or Little Bonsa, for they
man and wife joined in holy matrimony and either do trick."

As these words left Jeekie's lips Alan became aware of some unusual
movement on his left and looking round, saw that Mr. Champers-Haswell,
who stood by him, had dropped the cigar which he held and, white as a
sheet, was swaying to and fro. Indeed in another instant he would have
fallen had not Alan caught him in his arms and supported him till others
came to his assistance, when between them they carried him to a sofa. On
their