"This is my magic," said Elebi mysteriously, when he was questioned, "it is fitting that you should know its power." Bosambo yawned in his face with great insolence. Clear of Ochori by one day's march, the party reached the first straggling advance guard of the Big Forest. A cloud of gum-trees formed the approach to the wood, and here the magic of Elebi's basket of cloth strips became revealed. Every few hundred yards the party stopped, and Elebi tied one of the strips to a branch of a tree. "In this way," he communicated to his lieutenant, "we may be independent of gods, and fearless of devils, for if we cannot find the ivory we can at least find our way back again." (There had been such an experiment made by the missionaries in traversing the country between Bonguidga and the Big River, but there were no devils in that country.) In two days' marches they came upon a place of graves. There had been a village there, for Isisi palms grew luxuriously, and pushing aside the grass they came upon a rotting roof. Also there were millions of weaver birds in the nut-palms, and a choked banana grove. The graves, covered with broken cooking pots, Elebi found, and was satisfied. In the forest, a league beyond the dead village, they came upon an old man, so old that you might have lifted him with a finger and thumb. "Where do the young men go in their strength?" he mumbled childishly; "into the land of small devils? Who shall guide them back to their women? None, for the devils will confuse them, opening new roads and closing the old. Oh, Ko Ko!" He snivelled miserably. "Father," said Elebi, dangling strips of red flannel from his hand, "this is white man's magic, we come back by the way we go." Then the old man fell into an insane fit of cursing, and threw at them a thousand deaths, and Elebi's followers huddled back in frowning fear. "You have lived too long," said Elebi gently, and passed his spear through the old man's neck. * * * * * They found the ivory two days' journey beyond the place of killing. It was buried under a mound, which was overgrown with rank vegetation, and there was by European calculation some 50,000 worth. "We will go back and find carriers," said Elebi, "taking with us as many of the teeth as we can carry." Two hours later the party began its return journey, following the path where at intervals of every half-mile a strip of scarlet flannelette hung from a twig. There were many paths they might have taken, paths that looked as though they had been made by the hand of man, and Elebi was glad that he had blazed the way to safety. For eight hours the caravan moved swiftly, finding its direction with no difficulty; then the party halted for the night. Elebi was awakened in the night by a man who was screaming, and he leapt up, stirring the fire to a blaze. "It is the brother of Olambo of Kinshassa, he has the sickness _mongo_," said an awe-stricken voice, and Elebi called a council.