Or she might be a kind of African Ceres, a goddess of the
corn and harvest which were symbolised in the beauteous bloom she
tended. Who could tell? Not I, either then or afterwards, for I never
found out.
As for the Pongo themselves, their case was obvious. They were a dying
tribe, the last descendants of some higher race, grown barren from
intermarriage. Probably, too, they were at first only cannibals
occasionally and from religious reasons. Then in some time of dearth
they became very religious in that respect, and the habit overpowered
them. Among cannibals, at any rate in Africa, as I knew, this dreadful
food is much preferred to any other meat. I had not the slightest
doubt that although the Kalubi himself had brought us here in the wild
hope that we might save him from a terrible death at the hands of the
Beelzebub he served, Komba and the councillors, inspired thereto by
the prophet called Motombo, designed that we should be murdered and
eaten as an offering to the gods. How we were to escape this fate,
being unarmed, I could not imagine, unless some special protection
were vouchsafed to us.
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