I only know that she dwells with her women on the island in the lake, and at night, when it is very dark, sometimes she and her companions are heard upon the water, or passing through the forests, singing and laughing.”

“Did you ever see her, Kaneke?”

He hesitated like one who seeks time to make up a plausible story, or so I thought, then answered:

“Yes. Once when I was young. I had been sent to look for some goats of ours that had strayed, and following them into the forest which slopes down to the lake, I lost myself there. Night came on and I lay down to sleep under a tree, or rather to watch for the dawn, so that with the light I might escape from that darksome, haunted place, of which I was afraid.”

“Well, and what happened?”

“So much that I cannot remember all, Macumazahn. Spirits went by me; I heard them in the tree-tops and above; I heard them pass through the forest, laughing; I felt them gather about me and knew that they were mocking me. At length all those Wood-Dwellers went away, leaving me as terrified as though a lion had come and eaten out of my bowl. The moon rose and her light pierced down through the boughs, a shaft of it here, a shaft of it there, with breadths of blackness between. I shut my eyes, trying to sleep, then hearing sounds, I opened them again. I looked up. There in the heart of one of the pools of light stood a woman, a fair-skinned woman like to one of your people, Macumazahn. She seemed to be young and slender, also beautiful, as I perceived when she turned her head and the moon shone upon her face and showed her soft, dark eyes, which were like those of a buck. For the rest she was clad in grey garments that glimmered like a spider’s web filled with dew at dawn. There was a cap upon her head and from beneath it her black hair flowed down upon her shoulders. Oh, she was beautiful—so beautiful . . .” and he paused.

“That what, Kaneke?” I asked curiously.

“Lord, that I committed a great crime, the greatest in the whole world, the crime of sacrilege against her who is called the Shadow.”

“Shadow! Whose shadow?”

“The Shadow of the Engoi, the goddess who dwells in heaven and is shone upon by the star we worship above all other stars.” (This, I found afterwards, was the planet Venus.) “Or perhaps she dwells in the star and is shone upon by the moon—I do not know. At least, she who lives upon the island in the lake is the shadow of the Engoi upon earth, and that is why she is called Engoi and Shadow.”

“Very interesting,” I said, though I understood little of what he said, except that it was a piece of African occultism to which as yet I had not the key. “But what crime did you commit?”

“Lord, I was young and my blood was hot and the beauty of this wanderer in the forest made me mad. Lord, I threw my arms about her and embraced her. Or, rather, I tried to embrace her, but before my lips touched hers all my strength left me, my arms fell down and I became as a man of stone, though I could still see and hear. . . .”

“What did you see and hear, Kaneke?” I asked, for again he paused in his story.

“I saw her lovely face grow terrible and I heard her say, ‘Do you know who I am, O man Kaneke, who are not afraid to do me violence in my holy, secret grove where none may set his foot?’ Lord, I tried to lie, but I could not who must answer, ‘I know that you are the Engoi; I know that your name is Shadow. I pray you to pardon me, O Shadow.’

“’For what you have done there is no pardon. Still, your life is spared, if only for a while. Get you gone and let the Council of the Engoi deal with you as it will.’”

“And what happened then?”

“Then, Lord, she departed, vanishing away, and I too departed, flying through the forest terribly afraid and pursued by voices that proclaimed my crime and threatened vengeance. Next day the Council seized me and passed judgment on me, driving me from the land so that I fell into the hands of our enemies, the Abanda, who dwell upon the slopes of the mountains, and in the end was sold as a slave.”

“And how did this Council know what you had done, Kaneke?”

“What is known to the Shadow is known to her Council, and what is known to her Council is known to the Shadow, Lord.”

Now I considered Kaneke and his story, and came to the conclusion, a perfectly correct one, as I think, that he was lying to me. What his exact offence against this priestess may have been I don’t know and never learned in detail, though I believe that it was much worse than what he described. All that was certain is that he had committed some sacrilegious crime of such a character that, notwithstanding his rank, he was forced to fly out of his country in order to save his life, and to become an exile, which he remained.

Leaving that subject without further comment, I asked him who were these Abanda who delivered him into slavery.

“Lord,” he replied, “they are a branch of a people from whom we separated ages ago and who live on the plains beyond the mountains. They hate us and are jealous of us because the Engoi gives us rain and fruitful season, whereas often they suffer from drought and scarcity.