Julian looked at the twisted symbol with an intent fascination. 'As Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness,' he murmured to himself. 'Even so shall the Son of Man be lifted up. How well I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of these fine days. It's a rather clammy notion! The notion would be rather a nuisance, if I believed in the Worm.'
III. THIS NIGHT
As he drove along the veld twenty minutes after, Julian looked back at the burning Church. 'What would the Canon Superintendent say?' he muttered with a grin. A fantastic shape started up from the grass in front of him. The mules shied at it, and broke into a gallop. 'Pull up!' he shouted. At last the mules were pulled up. He sprang out and walked back along the road. The figure stood stock-still by the road-side, as if waiting to greet him.
When he came near, it came towards him, the figure of an old native with a ragged grey beard, all hunched up in a blanket.
'Tom.' called Julian to him in his shrill voice, 'You've got to come down to town tonight. No, you swine, to-morrow won't do. Tonight before sunset, or there'll be trouble. You know what I want you to do, what you did last Christmas.' The drive back to town was uneventful.
Julian sat on his stoep half an hour before dinner, smoking and pondering. He was anxious about that plunge he meant to make to-morrow. His philosophy of life, so largely commercial, found room for a cult or two of superstition. He had consulted Mrs. Puce's oracle time and time again. He had had recourse to his boy Jim's father, Tom Nyoka, twice before. He had got him to use for him a rude and illegal form of divination. He had been helped by it before, at least so he opined. He might be helped again. He sat looking at the sun dropping smoothly in a cloudless sky. As he watched, Jim came out to him to tell him that his father was in the kitchen. 'I'll come directly, Jim,' he said.
The piccanin was sent off to get water, the kitchen door was safely locked. The throwing of the bones began, while Julian watched with understanding eyes. His hard grip of his subjects, generally, extended to this remote ritual.
To-night the answer seemed to be inconclusive, but as they sought the answer, a clear sign appeared as it were by the way, and unsought. Julian was watching haggardly. He snarled a question at Jim. His cook-boy's big round eyes showed very big and very round just now. He was watching with painful intentness.
'Yes,' he answered his master, 'Yes, sir, it is so.'
Julian whistled and turned away moodily, with his hands in his pockets, staring into space.