The seventh is that a night was chosen when a wind blew which would
obliterate all spoor whether of men or of swiftly travelling camels.
These are enough to begin with, though doubtless if I had time to think
I could find others. You must remember too that although the journey
would be long, this country of the Kendah can doubtless be reached
from the Sudan by those who know the road, as well as from southern or
eastern Africa."

"Then you think that my wife has been kidnapped by those villains, Harût
and Marût?"

"Of course, though villains is a strong term to apply to them. They
might be quite honest men according to their peculiar lights, as indeed
I expect they are. Remember that they serve a god or a fetish, or
rather, as they believe, a god _in_ a fetish, who to them doubtless is
a very terrible master, especially when, as I understand, that god is
threatened by a rival god."

"Why do you say that, Quatermain?"

By way of answer I repeated to him the story which Hans said he had
heard from the old woman at Beza, the town of the Mazitu. Lord Ragnall
listened with the deepest interest, then said in an agitated voice:

"That is a very strange tale, but has it struck you, Quatermain, that
if your suppositions are correct, one of the most terrible circumstances
connected with my case is that our child should have chanced to come to
its dreadful death through the wickedness of an elephant?"

"That curious coincidence has struck me most forcibly, Lord Ragnall.