This was a most fortunate stroke, for at that moment a messenger arrived and gave Dacha exactly the same intelligence, which he punctuated with many bows. “Wonderful!” said the priest. “Wonderful! Here we have magicians indeed!” and he stared at us with much awe. Then again a doubt struck him. “Lord,” he said, “Heu-Heu is the ruler of the savage Hairy People who live in the woods and are named Heuheuas after him. Now a tale has reached us that one of these people has been mysteriously killed with a noise by some strangers. Had you aught to do with her death, Lord?” “Yes,” I answered. “She annoyed the Lord-of-the-Fire with her attentions, so he slew her, as was right and proper. I cut off the finger of another who wished to shake hands with me when I had told him to go away.” “But how did he slay her, Lord?” Now I may explain that there was one inhabitant of this place that greeted us with no cordiality at all, namely a large and particularly ferocious dog, that all this while had been growling round us and finally had got hold of Hans’s coat, which it held between its teeth, still growling. “_Scheet!_ Hans, _scheet een dood!_” (“Shoot! Hans, shoot him dead!”) I whispered, and Hans, who was always quick to catch an idea, put his hand into his pocket where he kept his pistol, and pressing the muzzle against the brute’s head, fired through the cloth, with the result that this dog went wherever bad dogs go. Then there was consternation. Indeed, one of the priests fell down with fear and the others turned tail, all of them except Dacha, who stood his ground. “A little of the magic fire!” I remarked airily, “and there is plenty more where that came from,” at the same time, as though by accident, slapping Hans’s pocket, which I saw was smouldering. “And now, noble Dacha, it is setting in wet and we are hungry. Be pleased to give us shelter and food.” “Certainly, Lord, certainly!” he exclaimed, and started off with us, keeping me well between himself and Hans, while the others, who had returned, followed with the dead dog. Presently, recovering from his fear, he asked me whether the Lady Sabeela had said anything more about him. “Only one thing,” I answered: “that it was a pity that a maiden should be obliged to marry a god when there were such men as you in the world.” Here I stopped and watched the effect of my shot out of the corner of my eye. His coarse but handsome face grew cunning, and he smacked his lips. “Yes, Lord, yes,” he said hurriedly. “But who knows? Things are not always what they seem, Lord, and I have noted that sometimes the faithful servant tithes the master’s offering.” “By Jingo! I’ve got it!” thought I to myself. “_You,_ my friend, are Heu-Heu, or at any rate his business part.” But aloud, glancing at the redoubtable Hans, I only remarked something to the effect that Dacha’s powers of observation were keen and that, like the Lord-of-the-Fire himself, as he said truly, things were not always what they seemed.