Brother John rose and looked at him.
“How are you, Kalubi, my friend?” he asked. “I see that your wound has healed well.”
“Yes, yes, but I would speak with you alone.”
“Not so,” replied Brother John. “If you have anything to say, you must say it to all of us, or leave it unsaid, since these lords and I are one, and that which I hear, they hear.”
“Can I trust them?” muttered the Kalubi.
“As you can trust me. Therefore speak, or go. Yet, first, can we be overheard in this hut?”
“No, Dogeetah. The walls are thick. There is no one on the roof, for I have looked all round, and if any strove to climb there, we should hear. Also your men who watch the door would see him. None can hear us save perhaps the gods.”
“Then we will risk the gods, Kalubi. Go on; my brothers know your story.”
“My lords,” he began, rolling his eyes about him like a hunted creature, “I am in a terrible pass. Once, since I saw you, Dogeetah, I should have visited the White God that dwells in the forest on the mountain yonder, to scatter the sacred seed. But I feigned to be sick, and Komba, the Kalubi-to-be, ‘who has passed the god,’ went in my place and returned unharmed. Now to-morrow, the night of the full moon, as Kalubi, I must visit the god again and once more scatter the seed and—Dogeetah, he will kill me whom he has once bitten. He will certainly kill me unless I can kill him. Then Komba will rule as Kalubi in my stead, and he will kill you in a way you can guess, by the ‘Hot death,’ as a sacrifice to the gods, that the women of the Pongo may once more become the mothers of many children. Yes, yes, unless we can kill the god who dwells in the forest, we all must die,” and he paused, trembling, while the sweat dropped from him to the floor.
“That’s pleasant,” said Brother John, “but supposing that we kill the god how would that help us or you to escape from the Motombo and these murdering people of yours? Surely they would slay us for the sacrilege.”