y.

Not being satisfied, I began to examine this roof and the clay walls,
which I forgot to mention were painted over in a kind of pattern with
whorls in it, by the feeble light of the primitive lamps. While I was
thus engaged there was a knock on the door. Forgetting all about the
dust, I opened it and Hans appeared.

"One of these man-eating devils wants to speak to you, Baas. Mavovo
keeps him without."

"Let him in," I said, since in this place fearlessness seemed our best
game, "but watch well while he is with us."

Hans whispered a word over his shoulder, and next moment a tall man
wrapped from head to foot in white cloth, so that he looked like a
ghost, came or rather shot into the hut and closed the door behind him.

"Who are you?" I asked.

By way of answer he lifted or unwrapped the cloth from about his face,
and I saw that the Kalubi himself stood before us.

"I wish to speak alone with the white lord, Dogeetah," he said in
a hoarse voice, "and it must be now, since afterwards it will be
impossible."

Brother John rose and looked at him.

"How are you, Kalubi, my friend?" he asked. "I see that your wound has
healed well."

"Yes, yes, but I would speak with you alone."

"Not so," replied Brother John. "If you have anything to say, you must
say it to all of us, or leave it unsaid, since these lords and I are
one, and that which I hear, they hear."

"Can I trust them?" muttered the Kalubi.

"As you can trust me. Therefore speak, or go. Yet, first, can we be
overheard in this hut?"

"No, Dogeetah. The walls are thick. There is no one on the roof, for I
have looked all round, and if any strove to climb there, we should hear.
Also your men who watch the door would see him. None can hear us save
perhaps the gods."

"Then we will risk the gods, Kalubi. Go on; my brothers know your
story."

"My lords," he began, rolling his eyes about him like a hunted creature,
"I am in a terrible pass. Once, since I saw you, Dogeetah, I should have
visited the White God that dwells in the forest on the mountain yonder,
to scatter the sacred seed. But I feigned to be sick, and Komba, the
Kalubi-to-be, 'who has passed the god,' went in my place and returned
unharmed. Now to-morrow, the night of the full moon, as Kalubi, I must
visit the god again and once more scatter the seed and--Dogeetah, he
will kill me whom he has once bitten. He will certainly kill me unless
I can kill him. Then Komba will rule as Kalubi in