“I know that this is the case with snakes,” he continued hurriedly as though to avoid the larger topic, “for once I came across one as large as the biggest Anaconda that is told of in South America, where occasionally they are said to reach a length of sixty feet or even more. Indeed, we killed it—or rather my Hottentot servant, Hans, did—after it had crushed and swallowed one of our party. This snake was worshipped as a kind of god, and might have given rise to the tale of enormous reptiles. Also, to omit other experiences of which I prefer not to speak, I have seen an elephant so much above the ordinary in size that it might have belonged to a prehistoric age. This elephant had been known for centuries and was named Jana.” “Did you kill it?” inquired Good, peering at him through his eyeglass in his quick, inquisitive way. Allan coloured beneath his tan and wrinkles, and said, rather sharply for him, who was so gentle and hard to irritate, “Have you not learned, Good, that you should never ask a hunter, and above all a professional hunter, whether he did or did not kill a particular head of game unless he volunteers the information. However, if you want to know, I did not kill that elephant; it was Hans who killed it and thereby saved my life. I missed it with both barrels at a distance of a few yards.” “Oh, I say, Quatermain!” ejaculated the irrepressible Good. “Do you mean to tell us that _you_ missed a particularly big elephant that was only a few yards off? You must have been in a pretty fright to do that.” “Have I not said that I missed it, Good? For the rest, perhaps you are right, and I was frightened, for as you know, I never set myself up as a person remarkable for courage. In the circumstances of the encounter with this beast, Jana, any one might have been frightened; indeed, even you yourself, Good. Or, if you choose to be charitable, you may conclude that there were other reasons for that disgraceful—yes, disgraceful exhibition of which I cannot bear to think and much less to talk, seeing that in the end it brought about the death of old Hans—whom I loved.” Now Good was about to answer again, for argument was as the breath of his nostrils, but I saw Sir Henry stretch out his long leg and kick him on the shin, after which he was silent. “To return,” said Allan hastily, as one does who desires to escape from an unpleasant subject, “in the course of my life I did once meet, not with a prehistoric reptile, but with a people who worshipped a Monster-god, or fetish, of which perhaps the origin may have been a survival from the ancient world.” He stopped with the air of one who meant to say no more, and I asked eagerly: “What was it, Allan?” “To answer that would involve a long story, my friend,” he replied, “and one that, if I told it, Good, I am sure, would not believe; also, it is getting late and might bore you. Indeed, I could not finish it to-night.”