Miss Holmes and others.) "If you like, I show you Mameena
'fore I go." (Murmurs from Miss Holmes and Miss Manners of "Oh, _please_
do!") "But that very little business, for what one long-ago lady out of
so many?"

Then suddenly he broke into Bantu, and added: "A jest is a jest,
Macumazana, though often there is meaning in a jest, and you shall see
Mameena if you will. I come here to ask you to do my people a service
for which you shall not lack reward. We, the White Kendah, the People of
the Child, are at war with the Black Kendah, our subjects who outnumber
us. The Black Kendah have an evil spirit for a god, which spirit from
the beginning has dwelt in the largest elephant in all the world, a
beast that none can kill, but which kills many and bewitches more. While
that elephant, which is named Jana, lives we, the People of the Child,
go in terror, for day by day it destroys us. We have learned--how it
does not matter--that you alone can kill that elephant. If you will come
and kill it, we will show you the place where all the elephants go to
die, and you shall take their ivory, many wagon-loads, and grow rich.
Soon you are going on a journey that has to do with a flower, and you
will visit peoples named the Mazitu and the Pongo who live on an island
in a lake. Far beyond the Pongo and across the desert dwell my people,
the Kendah, in a secret land. When you wish to visit us, as you will do,
journey to the north of that lake where the Pongo dwell, and stay there
on the edge of the desert shooting till we come. Now mock me if you
will, but do not forget, for these things shall befall in their season,
though that time be far. If we meet no more for a while, still do not
forget. When you have need of gold or of the ivory that is gold, then
journey to the north of the lake where the Pongo dwell, and call on the
names of Harut and Marut."

"And call on the names of Harut and Marut," repeated the younger man,
who hitherto appeared to take no interest in our talk.

Next, before I could answer, before I could think the thing out indeed,
for all this breath from savage and mystical Africa blowing on me
suddenly here in an Essex drawing-room, seemed to overwhelm me, the
ineffable Harut proceeded in his English conjurer's patter:

"Rich ladies and gentlemen want see trick by poor old wizard from centre
Africa. Well, we show them, but please 'member no magic, all quite
simple trick. Teach it you if you pay. Please not look too