god?" I said. "If the god is an ape as we have heard,
how can he be the brother of a man?"

"Oh! you white men do not understand, but we black people understand. In
the beginning the ape killed my brother who was Kalubi, and his spirit
entered into the ape, making him as a god, and so he kills every other
Kalubi and their spirits enter also into him. Is it not so, O Kalubi of
to-day, you without a finger?" and he laughed mockingly.

The Kalubi, who was lying on his stomach, groaned and trembled, but made
no other answer.

"So all has come about as I foresaw," went on the toad-like creature.
"You have returned, as I knew you would, and now we shall learn whether
White Beard yonder spoke true words when he said that his god would be
avenged upon our god. You shall go to be avenged on him if you can,
and then we shall learn. But this time you have none of your iron tubes
which alone we fear. For did not the god declare to us through me that
when the white men came back with an iron tube, then he, the god, would
die, and I, the Motombo, the god's Mouth, would die, and the Holy Flower
would be torn up, and the Mother of the Flower would pass away, and the
people of the Pongo would be dispersed and become wanderers and slaves?
And did he not declare that if the white men came again without their
iron tubes, then certain secret things would happen--oh! ask them not,
in time they shall be known to you, and the people of the Pongo who were
dwindling would again become fruitful and very great? And that is why we
welcome you, white men, who arise again from the land of ghosts, because
through you we, the Pongo, shall become fruitful and very great."

Of a sudden he ceased his rumbling talk, his head sank back between his
shoulders and he sat silent for a long while, his fierce, sparkling
eyes playing on us as though he would read our very thoughts. If he
succeeded, I hope that mine pleased him. To tell the truth, I was filled
with mixed fear, fury and loathing. Although, of course, I did not
believe a word of all the rubbish he had been saying, which was akin to
much that is evolved by these black-hearted African wizards, I hated the
creature whom I felt to be only half-human. My whole nature sickened at
his aspect and talk. And yet I was dreadfully afraid of him. I felt as
a man might who wakes up to find himself alone with some peculiarly
disgusting Christmas-story kind of ghost. Moreover I was quite sure that
he meant us il