or, as he was called, Muchini, summoned a council
of his elder men, and they came with parched throats and fear of death.

"All men know," said Muchini, "what sorrow has come to us, for there is
a more powerful ju-ju in the land than I remember. He has made M'shimba
M'shamba afraid so that he has gone away and walks no more in the forest
with his terrible lightning. Also K'li, the father of pools, has gone
into the earth and all his little children, and I think we shall die,
every one of us."

There was a skinny old man, with a frame like a dried goatskin, who made
a snuffling noise when he spoke.

"O Muchini," he said, "when I was a young man there was a way to bring
M'shimba M'shamba which was most wonderful. In those days we took a
young maiden and hung her upon a tree----"

"Those old ways were good," interrupted Muchini; "but I tell you,
M'bonia, that we can follow no more the old ways since Sandi came to the
land, for he is a cruel man and hanged my own mother's brother for that
fine way of yours. Yet we cannot sit and die because of certain magic
which the Stone Breaker is practising."

Now Bula Matadi ("The Stone Breaker") was in those days the mortal enemy
of the N'gombi people, who were wont to ascribe all their misfortunes to
his machinations. To Bula Matadi (which was the generic name by which
the Government of the Congo Free State was known) was traceable the
malign perversity of game, the blight of crops, the depredations of
weaver birds. Bula Matadi encouraged leopards to attack isolated
travellers, and would on great occasions change the seasons of the year
that the N'gombi's gardens might come to ruin.

"It is known from one end of the earth to the other that I am a most
cunning man," Muchini went on, stroking his muscular arm, a trick of
self-satisfied men in their moments of complacence; "and whilst even the
old men slept, I, Koosoogolaba-Muchini, the son of the terrible and
crafty G'sombo, the brother of Eleni-N'gombi, I went abroad with my wise
men and my spies and sought out devils and ghosts in places where even
the bravest have never been," he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper,
"to the Ewa-Ewa Mongo, the Very Place of Death."

The gasp of horror from his audience was very satisfying to this little
chief of the Inner N'gombi, and here was a moment suitable for his
climax.

"And behold!" he cried.

By his side was something covered with a piece of native cloth. This
covering he remo