that, in a domesticated
state.'

'But he is extinct. Hesketh Pritchard went to look for a live Mylodon,
and did not find him.'

'Did not know where to look,' said Bude.

'But you do?' asked Merton.

'Yes, I think so.'

'Then why don't you bring one over to the Zoo?'

'I may some day.'

'Are there any more survivors of extinct species?'

'Merton, is this an interview? Are you doing Mr. Jones Harvey at home
for a picture paper?'

'No, I've dropped the Press,' said Merton, 'I ask in a spirit of
scientific curiosity.'

'Well, there is the Dinornis, the Moa of New Zealand. A bird as big as
the Roc in the "Arabian Nights."'

'Have you seen _him_?'

'No, but I have seen _her_, the hen bird. She was sitting on eggs. No
man knows her nest but myself, and old Te-iki-pa, the chief medicine-man,
or Tohunga, of the Maori King. The Moa's eyrie is in the King's country.
It is a difficult country, and a dangerous business, if the cock Moa
chances to come home.'

'Bude, is this worthy of an old friend, this _blague_?'

'Do you doubt my word?'

'If you give me your word I must believe--that you dreamed it.'

_Then a strange thing happened_.

Bude walked to a small case of instruments that stood on a table in the
smoking-room. He unlocked it, took out a lancet, brought a Rhodian bowl
from a shelf, and bared his arm.

'Do you want proof?'

'Proof that you saw a hen Moa sitting?' asked Merton in amazement.

'Not exactly, but proof that Te-iki-pa knew a thing or two, quite as out
of the way as the habitat of the Moa.'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Bare your arm, and hold it over the bowl.'

The room was full of the yellow dusky light of an early summer morning in
London. Outside the heavy carts were rolling by: in full civilisation
the scene was strange.

'The Blood Covenant?' asked Merton.

Bude nodded.

Merton turned up his cuff, Bude let a little blood drop into the bowl,
then performed the same operation on his own arm.

'This is all rot,' he said, 'but without this I cannot show you, by
virtue of my oath to Te-iki-pa, what I mean to show you. Now repeat
after me what I am going to say.'

He spoke a string of words, among which Merton, as he repeated them,
could only recognise _mana_ and _atua_. The vowel sounds were as in
Italian.

'Now these words you must never report to any one, without my
permission.'

'Not likely,' said Merton, 'I only remember two of them, and these I knew
be