"Your turn, Hans." "Oh! Baas," replied the Hottentot, "for a while I grew clever again when I thought of putting the gun _Intombi_ into the bamboo.

But now my head is like a rotten egg, and when I try to shake wisdom out of it my brain melts and washes from side to side like the stuff in the rotten egg.
Yet, yet, I have a thought--let us ask the Missie.

Her brain is young and not tired, it may hit on something: to ask the Baas Stephen is no good, for already he is lost in other things," and Hans grinned feebly.
More to give myself time than for any other reason I called to Miss Hope, who had just emerged from the sacred enclosure with Stephen, and put the riddle to her, speaking very slowly and clearly, so that she might understand me.

To my surprise she answered at once.
"What is a god, O Mr.Allen?
Is it not more than man?
Can a god be bound in a pit for a thousand years, like Satan in Bible?
If a god want to move, see new country and so on, who can say no ?" "I don't quite understand," I said, to draw her out further, although, in fact, I had more than a glimmering of what she meant.
"O Allan, Holy Flower there a god, and my mother priestess.

If Holy Flower tired of this land, and want to grow somewhere else, why priestess not carry it and go too ?" "Capital idea," I said, "but you see, Miss Hope, there are, or were, two gods, one of which cannot travel." "Oh! that very easy, too.