to tell of it.

"She told me also that she was born of this people, but fled because
their sultan wished to place her in his house of women, which she did
not desire. For a long while she wandered southwards, living on roots
and berries, till she came to desert land and at last, worn out, lay
down to die. Then she was found by some of the Mazitu who were on an
expedition seeking ostrich feathers for war-plumes. They gave her food
and, seeing that she was fair, brought her back to their country, where
one of them married her. But of her own land she uttered only lying
words to them because she feared that if she told the truth the gods who
guard its secrets would be avenged on her, though now when she was near
to death she dreaded them no more, since even the Kendah gods cannot
swim through the waters of death. That is all she said about her journey
because she had forgotten the rest."

"Bother her journey, Hans. What did she say about her god and the Kendah
people?"

"This, Baas: that the Kendah have not one god but two, and not one ruler
but two. They have a good god who is a child-fetish" (here I started)
"that speaks through the mouth of an oracle who is always a woman. If
that woman dies the god does not speak until they find another woman
bearing certain marks which show that she holds the spirit of the god.
Before the woman dies she always tells the priests in what land they are
to look for her who is to come after her; but sometimes they cannot find
her and then trouble falls because 'the Child has lost its tongue,' and
the people become the prey of the other god that never dies."

"And what is that god, Hans?"