since it descended to me from a forefather of mine, who was fashioned in
the same mould as I am. It looks like blood, does it not? It is a pity
that Mameena is not still alive, since she whose memory was so excellent
might have been able to tell you," and as he spoke, with a motion that
was at once sure and swift, he threw the loop of elephant hair over my
head.

Hastily I changed the subject, feeling that after his wont this old
wizard, the most terrible man whom ever I knew, who had been so much
concerned with the tragic death of Mameena, was stabbing at me in some
hidden fashion.

"You tell me to go on this journey," I said, "and not alone. Yet for
companion you give me only an ugly piece of ivory shaped as no man ever
was," here I got one back at Zikali, "and from the look of it, steeped
in blood, which ivory, if I had my way, I would throw into the camp
fire. Who, then, am I to take with me?"

"Don't do that, Macumazahn--I mean throw the ivory into the fire--since
I have no wish to burn before my time, and if you do, you who have worn
it might burn with me. At least certainly you would die with the magic
thing and go to acquire knowledge more quickly than you desire. No, no,
and do not try to take it off your neck, or rather try if you will."

I did try, but something seemed to prevent me from accomplishing my
purpose of giving the carving back to Zikali as I wished to do. First
my pipe got in the way of my hand, then the elephant hairs caught in the
collar of my coat; then a pang of rheumatism to which I was accustomed
from an old lion-bite, developed of a sudden in my arm, and lastly I
grew tired of bothering about the thing.