“But they mock thy voice as well,” protested Birnier.
“Are there not goats in ghostland who bleat at the wizard and the peasant?”
“By the Lord!” murmured Birnier, although the mask of his face did not change. “Ghostland is full of goats if one were to credit some of the most modern witch-doctors! Still demonstration …
“Thou seest, fellow magician,” he continued, “the pod of the soul of mighty Tarum, his ear like unto an elephant, his colour like unto a lion!” Birnier got out of the mosquito net and knelt beside the phonograph in front of Bakahenzie. Taking off the trumpet and cylinder carrier he opened up the inside, revealing the clockwork motor, wound it up, stopped it and released it. “Thine eyes see that my words are white. These things are but as pieces of metal of thy spears. Is it not so?”
“Ough!”
Birnier closed the machine, adjusted the trumpet and put on the cylinder of Marufa’s record.
“Aie! Aiee! I am the spirit of Kintu!
Aie! Aiee! I am he who first was!”
chanted the machine.
Birnier, noticing that the desired astonishment was [pg 249] registered by an almost impalpable start, stopped the machine and changed the record.