stood at a distance from the gate to stare at
him. When addressed they made no reply. On the second occasion he began to
be irritated, but he kept his temper and went to cover in his tent,
muttering: "Why the devil don't they bring me some buns?"

On the fourth day patience began to fray. He had no notion of knowing how
long this quarantine was going to last. He was on the point of going to
find out, but Mungongo pleaded so earnestly that they would instantly be
killed if they did, that he desisted. So Birnier retired to the tent to
seek consolation from a record of Lucille's voice.

Birnier attempted to cross-examine Mungongo to find out what was the
object of this isolation, but beyond the fact that strangers were never
permitted to behold the King-God, even lay natives, without special magic,
which was only made once a year at the Harvest Festival, lest evil be made
upon his person and so endanger the world, Mungongo did not know; merely,
that so it was. What power over the head witch-doctor the King really had,
Mungongo had no notion. The King-God was the most powerful magician known,
asserted Mungongo. Did he not make rain and bear the world upon his
shoulders? When Birnier unwisely denied this feat, Mungongo looked pained
and began a remark, but balked before the name Moonspirit to ask the name
of Birnier's father.

At the mental image conjured up of a handsome white-haired planter and
ex-owner of many slaves Birnier smiled, but he knew the tabu regarding the
ban upon the names of the dead and that he, presumably, having ascended
into the divine plane, was therefore classed with the departed. He
recollected that the old man, who belonged to a cadet branch of a royalist
family, had been called "le Marquis," of which he was excessively proud.
Birnier translated into the dialect the nearest possible rendition of the
title: The Lord-of-many-Lands.

"The son of the Lord-of-many-Lands," continued Mungongo satisfied, "doth
but tickle the feet of his slave."

On the fifth afternoon, while the god was engrossed in a cure for love
madness which, he reflected, might be of service to zu Pfeiffer, came a
voice without crying:

"The son of Maliko would speak with the Lord, the Bearer of the World!"

Birnier glanced across at the photograph of Lucille.

"Some job I've gotten!" he remarked as he rose. In the gate sat
Bakahenzie. Birnier was conscious of an idiotic impulse to rush forward to
greet him as an old and long lo