t meant the Brazen Serpent,' said the
bailiff.

'Holy Moses!' laughed Julian. 'Well I'm going to jump this, it's
quite a curiosity. You may give the boy five bob from me if he
asks what we've done with it.'

'Right,' said the bailiff, and went off with the box to the cart.

Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination.
'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured
to himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well
I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a
flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that
day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ
all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread
on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it
would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for
my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine
days. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a
nuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'

III. THIS NIGHT

As he drove along the veld twenty minutes after, Julian looked
back at the burning Church. 'What would the Canon Superintendent
say?' he muttered with a grin. A fantastic shape started up from
the grass in front of him. The mules shied at it, and broke into
a gallop. 'Pull up!' he shouted. At last the mules were pulled
up. He sprang out and walked back along the road. The figure
stood stock-still by the road-side, as if waiting to greet him.

When he came near, it came towards him, the figure of an old
native with a ragged grey beard, all hunched up in a blanket.

'Tom.' called Julian to him in his shrill voice, 'You've got to
come down to town tonight. No, you swine, to-morrow won't do.
Tonight before sunset, or there'll be trouble. You know what I
want you to do, what you did last Christmas.' The drive back to
town was uneventful.

Julian sat on his stoep half an hour before dinner, smoking and
pondering. He was anxious about that plunge he meant to make
to-morrow. His philosophy of life, so largely commercial, found room
for a cult or two of superstition. He had consulted Mrs. Puce's
oracle time and time again. He had had recourse to his boy Jim's
father, Tom Nyoka, twice before. He had got him to use for him a
rude and illegal form of divination. He had been helped by it
before, at least so he opined. He might be helped again. He sat
looking at the sun dropping smoothly in a cloudles