When all were assembled Bakahenzie looked up from his spell and bade them to listen to what message the faculty—for obvious policy’s sake he included the whole of the ghosts—had received from ghostland by the three spirits, emphasising the vision of the magicians as proof positive of the terrible power of the craft. By reason of the sin committed by one who had broken the magic circle, as they all knew, said Bakahenzie, had this wrath of the Unmentionable One come upon them, permitting the incarnation of a demon, Eyes-in-the-hands, to work his will upon them and to make them slaves, as were their dogs the Wamungo; and so in the depth of their tribulation he, Bakahenzie, whose magic had been rendered impotent by the betrayal of the Bride of the Banana, had invoked the spirits of the three, as they all had witnessed.
“Ough! Ough!” grunted the warriors in assent, although many of them were sorely puzzled to know why the doctors themselves had fled. Yabolo began to grow restless in his mind. To allow Bakahenzie to steal all the thunder and condemn the possible source of political power to the level of an evil demon was contrary to his policy, but he gave no physical sign save to become engrossed in his snuff box.
Then Bakahenzie continued with a long harangue maintaining the necessity of the consummation of the Marriage of the Banana and announced that Zalu Zako had been taken by the spirit of his forefathers in order to prepare magic for the eating up of the terrible Eyes-in-the-hands; that as the voice of Tarum had said, Zalu Zako would return with “That which was slain on the hill—that which ye seek, that which is yours.” Although Bakahenzie was not sure to what these words had referred, yet he was sagacious enough to know that if Marufa had engineered that scene, then there must be some plan at the back of it, and in any case knew, as any white medicine man, that words in mystic phrasing are always soul-satisfying to the credulous who interpret them in terms of their subconscious desires. Then with political prudence he avoided any reference to uncomfortable topics, by dismissing the assembly before any pertinent questions could be asked.
But when Bakahenzie had retired to his hut, presumably for the night, as Marufa had done before him, he girded himself with an amulet containing the gall of an enemy killed in battle and a short stabbing spear and sallied forth through a hole in the fence to brave the spirits of the forests in his need.