"
"That's cheerful," I said. "Your turn, Hans."
"Oh! Baas," replied the Hottentot, "for a while I grew clever again
when I thought of putting the gun /Intombi/ into the bamboo. But now
my head is like a rotten egg, and when I try to shake wisdom out of it
my brain melts and washes from side to side like the stuff in the
rotten egg. Yet, yet, I have a thought--let us ask the Missie. Her
brain is young and not tired, it may hit on something: to ask the Baas
Stephen is no good, for already he is lost in other things," and Hans
grinned feebly.
More to give myself time than for any other reason I called to Miss
Hope, who had just emerged from the sacred enclosure with Stephen, and
put the riddle to her, speaking very slowly and clearly, so that she
might understand me. To my surprise she answered at once.
"What is a god, O Mr. Allen? Is it not more than man? Can a god be
bound in a pit for a thousand years, like Satan in Bible? If a god
want to move, see new country and so on, who can say no?"
"I don't quite understand," I said, to draw her out further, although,
in fact, I had more than a glimmering of what she meant.
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