So one may as well have the orchid also, for they'd be lonely without it, poor things, wouldn't they?
Glad I thought of that, it's soothing to the conscience." "I hope you'll find it so when we are all on that iron grid which I noticed is wide enough for three," I remarked sarcastically.

"Now be quiet, I want to go to sleep." I am sorry to have to add that for the most of that night Want remained my master.

But if I couldn't sleep, I could, or rather was obliged to, think, and I thought very hard indeed.
First I reflected on the Pongo and their gods.

What were these and why did they worship them?
Soon I gave it up, remembering that the problem was one which applied equally to dozens of the dark religions of this vast African continent, to which none could give an answer, and least of all their votaries.

That answer indeed must be sought in the horrible fears of the unenlightened human heart, which sees death and terror and evil around it everywhere and, in this grotesque form or in that, personifies them in gods, or rather in devils who must be propitiated.
For always the fetish or the beast, or whatever it may be, is not the real object of worship.