“I am sure I don’t know, Kalubi, but answer the rest of the question.”

“As to your coming into the forest—­for the White God lives in a forest on the slopes of the mountain, lords—­that will be easy since the Motombo and the people will believe that I am trapping you there to be a sacrifice, such as they desire for sundry reasons,” and he looked at the plump Stephen in a very suggestive way.  “As to how you are to kill the god without your tubes of iron, that I do not know.  But you are very brave and great magicians.  Surely you can find a way.”

Here Brother John seemed to wake up again.

“Yes,” he said, “we shall find a way.  Have no fear of that, O Kalubi.  We are not afraid of the big ape whom you call a god.  Yet it must be at a price.  We will not kill this beast and try to save your life, save at a price.”

“What price?” asked the Kalubi nervously.  “There are wives and cattle —­no, you do not want the wives, and the cattle cannot be taken across the lake.  There are gold dust and ivory.  I have already promised these, and there is nothing more that I can give.”

“The price is, O Kalubi, that you hand over to us to be taken away the white woman who is called Mother of the Holy Flower, with her daughter——­”

“And,” interrupted Stephen, to whom I had been interpreting, “the Holy Flower itself, all of it dug up by the roots.”

When he heard these modest requests the poor Kalubi became like one upon the verge of madness.

“Do you understand,” he gasped, “do you understand that you are asking for the gods of my country?”

“Quite,” replied Brother John with calmness; “for the gods of your country—­nothing more nor less.”

The Kalubi made as though he would fly from the hut, but I caught him by the arm and said: 

“See, friend, things are thus.  You ask us, at great danger to ourselves, to kill one of the gods of your country, the highest of them, in order to save your life.  Well, in payment we ask you to make a present of the remaining gods of your country, and to see us and them safe across the lake.  Do you accept or refuse?”

“I refuse,” answered the Kalubi sullenly.  “To accept would mean the last curse upon my spirit; that is too horrible to tell.”

“And to refuse means the first curse upon your body; namely, that in a few hours it must be broken and chewed by a great monkey which you call a god.  Yes, broken and chewed, and afterwards, I think, cooked and eaten as a sacrifice.  Is it not so?”

The Kalubi nodded his head and groaned.

“Yet,” I went on, “for our part we are glad that you have refused, since now we shall be rid of a troublesome and dangerous business and return in safety to Mazitu land.”

“How will you return in safety, O lord Macumazana, you who are doomed to the ‘Hot Death’ if you escape the fangs of the god?”