irls and children pelted
us with flowers as though we were brides going to be married. Our road
ran by the place of execution where the stakes, at which I confess I
looked with a shiver, were still standing, though the graves had been
filled in.

On our arrival Bausi and his councillors rose and bowed to us. Indeed,
the king did more, for coming forward he seized Brother John by the
hand, and insisted upon rubbing his ugly black nose against that of this
revered guest. This, it appeared, was the Mazitu method of embracing,
an honour which Brother John did not seem at all to appreciate. Then
followed long speeches, washed down with draughts of thick native beer.
Bausi explained that his evil proceedings were entirely due to the
wickedness of the deceased Imbozwi and his disciples, under whose
tyranny the land had groaned for long, since the people believed them to
speak "with the voice of 'Heaven Above.'"

Brother John, on our behalf, accepted the apology, and then read a
lecture, or rather preached a sermon, that took exactly twenty-five
minutes to deliver (he is rather long in the wind), in which he
demonstrated the evils of superstition and pointed to a higher and a
better path. Bausi replied that he would like to hear more of that path
another time which, as he presumed that we were going to spend the rest
of our lives in his company, could easily be found--say during the next
spring when the crops had been sown and the people had leisure on their
hands.

After this we presented our gifts, which now were eagerly accepted. Then
I took up my parable and explained to Bausi that so far from stopping in
Beza Town for the rest of our lives, we were anxious to press forward
at once to Pongo-land. The king's face fell, as did those of his
councillors.

"Listen, O lord Macumazana, and all of you," he said. "These Pongo are
horrible wizards, a great and powerful people who live by themselves
amidst the swamps and mix with none. If the Pongo catch Mazitu or folk
of any other tribe, either they kill them or take them as prisoners to
their own land where they enslave them, or sometimes sacrifice them to
the devils they worship."

"That is so," broke in Babemba, "for when I was a lad I was a slave
to the Pongo and doomed to be sacrificed to the White Devil. It was in
escaping from them that I lost this eye."

Needless to say, I made a note of this remark, though I did not think
the moment opportune to follow the matter up.