“Lord Macumazana, I will.  Who and what the Child is I cannot say because I do not know.  But it has been our god for thousands of years, and we believe that our remote forefathers brought it with them when they were driven out of Egypt at some time unknown.  We have writings concerning it done up in little rolls, but as we cannot read them they are of no use to us.  It has an hereditary priesthood, of which Harut my uncle, for he is my uncle, is the head.  We believe that the Child is God, or rather a symbol in which God dwells, and that it can save us in this world and the next, for we hold that man is an immortal spirit.  We believe also that through its Oracle—­a priestess who is called Guardian of the Child—­it can declare the future and bring blessings or curses upon men, especially upon our enemies.  When the Oracle dies we are helpless since the Child has no ‘mouth’ and our enemies prevail against us.  This happened a long while ago, and the last Oracle having declared before her death that her successor was to be found in England, my uncle and I travelled thither disguised as conjurers and made search for many years.  We thought that we had found the new Oracle in the lady who married the Lord Igeza, because of that mark of the new moon upon her neck.  After our return to Africa, however, for as I have spoken of this matter I may as well tell you all,” here he stared me full in the eyes and spoke in a clear metallic voice which somehow no longer convinced me, “we found that we had made a mistake, for the real Oracle, a mere girl, was discovered among our own people, and has now been for two years installed in her office.  Without doubt the last Guardian of the Child was wandering in her mind when she told us that story before her death as to a woman in England, a country of which she had heard through Arabs.  That is all.”

“Thank you,” I replied, feeling that it would be useless to show any suspicion of his story.  “Now will you be so good as to tell me who and what is the god, or the elephant Jana, whom you have brought me here to kill?  Is the elephant a god, or is the god an elephant?  In either case what has it to do with the Child?”

“Lord, Jana among us Kendah represents the evil in the world, as the Child represents the good.  Jana is he whom the Mohammedans call Shaitan and the Christians call Satan, and our forefathers, the old Egyptians, called Set.”

“Ah!” thought I to myself, “now we have got it.  Horus the Divine Child, and Set the evil monster, with whom it strives everlastingly.”

“Always,” went on Marut, “there has been war between the Child and Jana, that is, between Good and Evil, and we know that in the end one of them must conquer the other.”

“The whole world has known that from the beginning,” I interrupted.  “But who and what is this Jana?”

“Among the Black Kendah, Lord, Jana is an elephant, or at any rate his symbol is an elephant, a very terrible beast to which sacrifices are made, that kills all who do not worship him if he chances to meet them.  He lives farther on in the forest yonder, and the Black Kendah make use of him in war, for the devil in him obeys their priests.”