“Lord, we watched you.  We knew when you came to Egypt; we followed you in Egypt, whither we had journeyed on our road to England once more to seek our Oracles, till the day of our opportunity dawned.  Then at night we called her and she obeyed the call, as she must do whose mind we have taken away—­ask me not how—­and brought her to dwell with us, she who is marked from her birth with the holy sign and wears upon her breast certain charmed stones and a symbol that for thousands of years have adorned the body of the Child and those of its Oracles.  Do you remember a company of Arabs whom you saw riding on the banks of the Great River on the day before the night when she was lost to you?  We were with that company and on our camels we bore her thence, happy and unharmed to this our land, as I trust, when all is done, we shall bear her back again and you with her.”

“I trust so also, for you have wrought me a great wrong,” said Ragnall briefly, “perhaps a greater wrong than I know at present, for how came it that my boy was killed by an elephant?”

“Ask that question of Jana and not of me,” Harut answered darkly.  Then he went on:  “You also, Lord Macumazana, work for a reward, the countless store of ivory which your eyes have beheld lying in the burial place of elephants beyond the Tava River.  When you have slain Jana who watches the store, and defeated the Black Kendah who serve him, it is yours and we will give you camels to bear it, or some of it, for all cannot be carried, to the sea where it can be taken away in ships.  As for the yellow man, I think that he seeks no reward who soon will inherit all things.”

“The old witch-doctor means that I am going to die,” remarked Hans expectorating reflectively.  “Well, Baas, I am quite ready, if only Jana and certain others die first.  Indeed I grow too old to fight and travel as I used to do, and therefore shall be glad to pass to some land where I become young again.”

“Stuff and rubbish!” I exclaimed, then turned and listened to Harut who, not understanding our Dutch conversation, was speaking once more.

“Lords,” he said, “these paths which run east and west are the real approach to the mountain top and the temple, not that which, as I suppose, led you through the cave of the old serpent.  The road to the west, which wanders round the base of the hill to a pass in those distant mountains and thence across the deserts to the north, is so easy to stop that by it we need fear no attack.  With this eastern road the case is, however, different, as I shall now show you, if you will ride with me.”