"Well, sir, this Bakairi tribe believed that its god demanded a sacrifice yearly, and their priests taught them that a certain one of their number had been sent by their god for this sacrifice each year; that only by butchering this particular member of the tribe and--incredible as it sounds--eating his body and drinking his blood, could they avert drouth and pestilence and secure favours for the year to come. I remember the historian intimated that it were well not to incur the displeasure of any priest; that one doing this might find it followed by an unpleasant circumstance when the time came for the priests to designate the next yearly sacrifice." "Curious, indeed, and most revolting," assented the old man, laying down his paper. "You _are_ feeling more cheerful, aren't you--and you look so much brighter. Ah, what a mercy of God's you were spared to me!--you know you became my walking-stick when you were a very little boy--I could hardly go far without you now, my son." "Yes, sir--thank you--I've just been recalling some of the older religions--Nancy and I had quite a talk about the old Christian faith." "I'm glad indeed. I had sometimes been led to suspect that Nancy was the least bit--well, frivolous--but I am an old man, and doubtless the things that seem best to me are those I see afar off, their colour subdued through the years." "Nancy wasn't a bit frivolous this morning--on the contrary, she seemed for some reason to consider me the frivolous one. She looked shocked at me more than once. Now, about the old Christian faith, you know--their god was content with one sacrifice, instead of one each year, though he insisted on having the body eaten and the blood drunk perpetually. Yet I suppose, sir, that the Christian god, in this limiting of the human sacrifice to one person, may be said to show a distinct advance over the god of the Bakairi, though he seems to have been equally a tribal god, whose chief function it was to make war upon neighbouring tribes." "Yes, my boy--quite so," replied the old man most soothingly. He stepped gently to the door. Halfway down the hall Allan was about to turn into his room. He came, beckoned by the old man, who said, in tones too low for Bernal to hear: "Go quickly for Dr. Merritt. He's out of his head again." CHAPTER II FURTHER DISTRESSING FANTASIES OF A CLOUDED MIND When young Dr. Merritt came, flushed and important-looking, greatly concerned by the reported relapse, he found his patient with normal pulse and temperature--rational and joyous at his discovery that the secret of reading Roman letters was still his.