First I saw Ragnall run up with a rifle and fire two barrels at the brute’s head, of which he took no notice whatsoever.  Then I saw his wife, who in this land was known as the Guardian of the Child, issuing from the portals of the second court, dressed in her goddess robes, wearing the cap of bird’s feathers, attended by the two priestesses also dressed as goddesses, as we had seen her on the morning of sacrifice, and holding in front of her the statue of the Ivory Child.

On she came quite quietly, her wide, empty eyes fixed upon Jana.  As she advanced the monster seemed to grow uneasy.  Turning his head, he lifted his trunk and thrust it along his back until it gripped the ankle of the King Simba, who all this while was seated there in his chair making no movement.

With a slow, steady pull he dragged Simba from the chair so that he fell upon the ground near his left foreleg.  Next very composedly he wound his trunk about the body of the helpless man, whose horrified eyes I can see to this day, and began to whirl him round and round in the air, gently at first but with a motion that grew ever more rapid, until the bright chains on the victim’s breast flashed in the sunlight like a silver wheel.  Then he hurled him to the ground, where the poor king lay a mere shattered pulp that had been human.

Now the priestess was standing in front of the beast-god, apparently quite without fear, though her two attendants had fallen back.  Ragnall sprang forward as though to drag her away, but a dozen men leapt on to him and held him fast, either to save his life or for some secret reason of their own which I never learned.

Jana looked down at her and she looked up at Jana.  Then he screamed furiously and, shooting out his trunk, snatched the Ivory Child from her hands, whirled it round as he had whirled Simba, and at last dashed it to the stone pavement as he had dashed Simba, so that its substance, grown brittle on the passage of the ages, shattered into ten thousand fragments.

At this sight a great groan went up from the men of the White Kendah, the women dressed as goddesses shrieked and tore their robes, and Harut, who stood near, fell down in a fit or faint.

Once more Jana screamed.  Then slowly he knelt down, beat his trunk and the clattering metal balls upon the ground thrice, as though he were making obeisance to the beautiful priestess who stood before him, shivered throughout his mighty bulk, and rolled over—­dead!

The fighting ceased.  The Black Kendah, who all this while had been pressing into the court of the temple, saw and stood stupefied.  It was as though in the presence of events to them so pregnant and terrible men could no longer lift their swords in war.

A voice called:  “The god is dead!  The king is dead!  Jana has slain Simba and has himself been slain!  Shattered is the Child; spilt is the blood of Jana!  Fly, People of the Black Kendah; fly, for the gods are dead and your land is a land of ghosts!”