Then his countenance fell and he added: "Yet my life must pay for this
deed, for it is an ancient law among us that to harm one of these snakes
is death."

"Have no fear," said Owen, "a way will be found out of this trouble."

That afternoon Owen heard a great hubbub outside his kraal, and going to
see what was the matter, he found a party of the witch-doctors dragging
John towards the place of judgment, which was by the king's house.
Thither he followed to discover that the case was already in course of
being opened before the king, his council, and a vast audience of
the people. Hokosa was the accuser. In brief and pregnant sentences,
producing the dead snake in proof of his argument, he pointed out the
enormity of the offence against the laws of the Amasuka wherewith the
prisoner was charged, demanding that the man who had killed the house of
his ancestral spirit should instantly be put to death.

"What have you to say?" asked the king of John.

"This, O King," replied John, "that I am a Christian, and to me that
snake is nothing but a noxious reptile. It bit my wife, and had it not
been for the medicine of the Messenger, she would have perished of the
poison. Therefore I killed it before it could harm others."

"It is a fair answer," said the king. "Hokosa, I think that this man
should go free."

"The king's will is the law," replied Hokosa bitterly; "but if the law
were the king's will, the decision would be otherwise. This man has
slain, not a snake, but that which held the spirit of an ancestor, and