To our astonishment about three weeks later they reappeared at
Beza Town with this story.
They said that they had crossed the lake and found Rica still
standing, but utterly deserted. They then wandered through the country
and even explored the Motombo's cave. There they discovered the
remains of the Motombo, still crouched upon his platform, but nothing
more. In one hut of a distant village, however, they came across an
old and dying woman who informed them with her last breath that the
Pongos, frightened by the iron tubes that vomited death and in
obedience to some prophecy, "had all gone back whence they came in the
beginning," taking with them the recaptured "Holy Flower." She had
been left with a supply of food because she was too weak to travel.
So, perhaps, that flower grows again in some unknown place in Africa,
but its worshippers will have to provide themselves with another god
of the forest, another Mother of the Flower, and another high-priest
to fill the office of the late Motombo.
These Pongo prisoners, having now no home, and not knowing where their
people had gone except that it was "towards the north," asked for
leave to settle among the Mazitu, which was granted them.
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