No one could doubt its antiquity, for the gold plate of which it was
made was literally worn away wherever it had touched the foreheads of
the high priests or priestesses who donned it upon festive occasions or
days of sacrifice, showing that hundreds and hundreds of them must have
used it thus in succession. So was the vocal apparatus within the mouth,
and so were the little toad-like feet upon which it was stood up. Also
the substance of the gold itself as here and there pitted as though with
acid or salts, though what those salts were she did not inquire.
And yet, so consummate was the art with which it had originally been
fashioned, that the battered beautiful face of Little Bonsa still peered
at them with the same devilish smile that it had worn when it left the
hands of its maker, perhaps before Mohammed preached his holy war, or
even earlier.
"What is all that writing on the back of it?" asked Barbara, pointing to
the long lines of rune-like characters which were inscribed within it.
"Not know, miss, think they dead tongue cut in the beginning when black
men could write. But Asiki priests swear they remember every one of
them, and that why no one can copy Little Bonsa, for they look inside
and see if marks all right.
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