At the same time I do not see how it can be set down as more than
a coincidence, since the elephant which slaughtered your child was
certainly not that called Jana. To suppose because there is a war
between an elephant-god and a child-god somewhere in the heart of
Africa, that therefore another elephant can be so influenced that it
kills a child in England, is to my mind out of all reason."

That is what I said to him, as I did not wish to introduce a new horror
into an affair that was already horrible enough. But, recollecting that
these priests, Harût and Marût, believed the mother of this murdered
infant to be none other than the oracle of their worship (though how
this chanced passed my comprehension), and therefore the great enemy
of the evil elephant-god, I confess that at heart I felt afraid. If any
powers of magic, black or white or both, were mixed up with the matter
as my experiences in England seemed to suggest, who could say what might
be their exact limits? As, however, it has been demonstrated again and
again by the learned that no such thing as African magic exists, this
line of thought appeared to be too foolish to follow. So passing it by I
asked Lord Ragnall to continue.

"For over a month," he went on, "I stopped in Egypt waiting till
emissaries who had been sent to the chiefs of various tribes in the
Sudan and elsewhere, returned with the news that nothing whatsoever had
been seen of a white woman travelling in the company of natives, nor
had they heard of any such woman being sold as a slave. Also through the
Khedive, on whom I was able to bring influence to bear by help of
the British Government, I caused many harems in Egypt to be visited,
entirely without result. After this, leaving the inquiry in the hands of
the British Consul and a firm of French lawyers, although in truth all
hope had gone, I returned to England whither I had already sent Lady