"
"In Heaven's name," asked Alan, exasperated, "what is Little Bonsa,
beyond an ancient and ugly gold fetish?"
"Hush," said Jeekie, "mustn't call her names here in her own house.
Little Bonsa much more than fetish, Little Bonsa alive, or so," he added
doubtfully, "these silly niggers say. She wife of Big Bonsa, you see,
to-morrow p'raps. But their story this, that she get dead sick of Big
Bonsa and bolt with white Medicine man, who dare preach she nothing but
heathen idol. She want show him whether or no she only idol. That the
yarn, priests tell it me to-day. They always watch for her there by the
edge of the lake. They always sure Little Bonsa come back. Not at all
surprised, but as she love you once, you stop holy; and I holy also,
thank goodness, because she take me too as servant. Therefore we sleep
in peace, for they not cut out throats, at any rate at present, though I
think," he added mournfully, "they not let us go either."
Alan sat down on a stool and groaned at the appalling prospect suggested
by this information.
"Cheer up, Major," said Jeekie sympathetically. "Perhaps manage hook it
somehow, and meanwhile make best of bad business and have high old time.
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