‘Proof that you saw a hen Moa sitting?’ asked Merton in amazement.
‘Not exactly, but proof that Te-iki-pa knew a thing or two, quite as out of the way as the habitat of the Moa.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Bare your arm, and hold it over the bowl.’
The room was full of the yellow dusky light of an early summer morning in London. Outside the heavy carts were rolling by: in full civilisation the scene was strange.
‘The Blood Covenant?’ asked Merton.
Bude nodded.
Merton turned up his cuff, Bude let a little blood drop into the bowl, then performed the same operation on his own arm.
‘This is all rot,’ he said, ‘but without this I cannot show you, by virtue of my oath to Te-iki-pa, what I mean to show you. Now repeat after me what I am going to say.’
He spoke a string of words, among which Merton, as he repeated them, could only recognise mana and atua. The vowel sounds were as in Italian.