"True, O Zikali," I said. "That is so far as I am concerned."
But Saduko answered nothing.
"Well," went on the dwarf, "since I am in the mood I will try to answer
both your questions, for I should be a poor Nyanga" [that is doctor]
"if I did not when you have travelled so far to ask them. Moreover, O
Macumazana, be happy, for I seek no fee who, having made such fortune
as I need long ago, before your father was born across the Black Water,
Macumazahn, no longer work for a reward--unless it be from the hand of
one of the House of Senzangakona--and therefore, as you may guess, work
but seldom."
Then he clapped his hands, and a servant appeared from somewhere behind
the hut, one of those fierce-looking men who had stopped us at the gate.
He saluted the dwarf and stood before him in silence and with bowed
head.
"Make two fires," said Zikali, "and give me my medicine."
The man fetched wood, which he built into two little piles in front of
Zikali. These piles he fired with a brand brought from behind the hut.
Then he handed his master a catskin bag.
"Withdraw," said Zikali, "and return no more till I summon you, for I am
about to prophesy. If, however, I should seem to die, bury me to-morrow
in the place you know of and give this white man a safe-conduct from my
kraal."
The man saluted again and went without a word.
When he had gone the dwarf drew from the bag a bundle of twisted roots,
also some pebbles, from which he selected two, one white and the other
black.
"Into this stone," he said, holding up the white pebble so that the
light from the fire shone on it--since, save for the lingering red
glow, it was now growing dark--"into this stone I am about to draw
your spirit, O Macumazana; and into this one"--and he held up the black
pebble--"yours, O Son of Matiwane. Why do you look frightened, O brave
White Man, who keep saying in your heart, 'He is nothing but an ugly
old Kafir cheat'? If I am a cheat, why do you look frightened? Is your
spirit already in your throat, and does it choke you, as this little
stone might do if you tried to swallow it?" and he burst into one of his
great, uncanny laughs.
I tried to protest that I was not in the least frightened, but failed,
for, in fact, I suppose my nerves were acted on by his suggestion, and
I did feel exactly as though that stone were in my throat, only coming
upwards, not going downwards. "Hysteria," thought I to myself, "the
result of being overtired," and as I could not speak, sat still as
though I treated his gibes with silent contempt.