e unto a lion!"
Birnier got out of the mosquito net and knelt beside the phonograph in
front of Bakahenzie. Taking off the trumpet and cylinder carrier he opened
up the inside, revealing the clockwork motor, wound it up, stopped it and
released it. "Thine eyes see that my words are white. These things are but
as pieces of metal of thy spears. Is it not so?"

"Ough!"

Birnier closed the machine, adjusted the trumpet and put on the cylinder
of Marufa's record.

"Aie! Aiee! I am the spirit of Kintu!
Aie! Aiee! I am he who first was!"

chanted the machine.

Birnier, noticing that the desired astonishment was registered by an
almost impalpable start, stopped the machine and changed the record.

"Rejoice, O my children, for he that is bidden shall come!
Rejoice, O ye warriors, for he that shall lead you shall come!
Rejoice, O ye wizards, for he that is greater than ye shall come!
Rejoice, O ye women, for he that fertilizes shall come!"

Birnier allowed the machine to run through the chant until the end:

"He shall come forth bearing that which ye seek!
Hear ye, my people, and give voice to my word!"

The machine whirred and stopped. Birnier turned to Bakahenzie.

"Thou hast seen, O my brother magician, that my words are white?"

"Ough!" assented Bakahenzie.

"Thou hast seen, O my brother magician, that at the will of my finger upon
that which is made but of spear-heads that the voice of Tarum hath spoken,
the voice which is but the mocking voice of Marufa amid the trees of the
forest?"

"Ough!"

"Dost thou not know that he who knows the ways of rocks, who can make
pieces of spear into that which will say and do that which he wills, is a
greater magician than he who must needs go unto the rocks to be mocked?"

"Thou art the greatest of magicians, O son of the Lord-of-many-Lands,"
responded Bakahenzie in a burst of eloquence. "For thou hast entrapped the
spirits of rocks and spears to do thy bidding."

"O God!" sighed the professor, "what is the use of language?"

CHAPTER 24

A favourite panacea for the results of a stupid action is the sentiment of
martyrdom. When MYalu persisted in bitter reproaches to Yabolo and
Sakamata the first retorted that the punishment was the result of having
committed the sacrilege of kidnapping the sacred Bride of the Banana. Then
MYalu considered that not only had he been trapped by one of his own
people whom he had d