At length he looked up, tossing back his grey locks, and said: "I see many things in the dust. Oh, yes, it is alive, it is alive, and
tells me many things. Show that you are alive, O Dust. Look!"
As he spoke, throwing his hands upwards, there arose at his very feet
one of those tiny and incomprehensible whirlwinds with which all who
know South Africa will be familiar. It drove the dust together; it
lifted it in a tall, spiral column that rose and rose to a height of
fifty feet or more. Then it died away as suddenly as it had come, so
that the dust fell down again over Zikali, over the King, and over three
of his sons who sat behind him. Those three sons, I remember, were named
Tshonkweni, Dabulesinye, and Mantantashiya. As it chanced, by a strange
coincidence all of these were killed at the great battle of the Tugela
of which I have to tell.
Now again an exclamation of fear and wonder rose from the audience, who
set down this lifting of the dust at Zikali's very feet not to natural
causes, but to the power of his magic. Moreover, those on whom it had
fallen, including the King, rose hurriedly and shook and brushed it
from their persons with a zeal that was not, I think, inspired by a mere
desire for cleanliness. But Zikali only laughed again in his terrible
fashion and let it lie on his fresh-oiled body, which it turned to the
dull, dead hue of a grey adder.
He rose and, stepping here and there, examined the new-fallen dust. Then
he put his hand into a pouch he wore and produced from it a dried human
finger, whereof the nail was so pink that I think it must have been
coloured--a sight at which the circle shuddered.
"Be clever," he said, "O Finger of her I loved best; be clever and write
in the dust as yonder Macumazana can write, and as some of the Dwandwe
used to write before we became slaves and bowed ourselves down before
the Great Heavens." (By this he meant the Zulus, whose name means
the Heavens.) "Be clever, dear Finger which caressed me once, me, the
'Thing-that-should-not-have-been-born,' as more will think before I die,
and write those matters that it pleases the House of Senzangakona to
know this day."
Then he bent down, and with the dead finger at three separate spots made
certain markings in the fallen dust, which to me seemed to consist of
circles and dots; and a strange and horrid sight it was to see him do
it.
"I thank you, dear Finger. Now sleep, sleep, your work is done," and
slowly he wrapped the relic up in some soft material and restored it to
his pouch.