Child of Storm

In another minute I was watching her solitary little figure, now wrapped

again in the hooded kaross, as it vanished over the brow of the rise

behind us, and really, as she went, I felt a lump rising in my throat.

Notwithstanding all her wickedness--and I suppose she was wicked--there

was something horribly attractive about Mameena.

When she had gone, taking my only looking-glass with her, and the lump

in my throat had gone also, I began to wonder how much fact there was in

her story. She had protested so earnestly that she told me all the truth

that I felt sure there must be something left behind. Also I remembered

she had said Zikali wanted to see me. Well, the end of it was I took a

moonlight walk up that dreadful gorge, into which not even Scowl would

accompany me, because he declared that the place was well known to be

haunted by imikovu, or spectres who have been raised from the dead by

wizards.

It was a long and disagreeable walk, and somehow I felt very depressed

and insignificant as I trudged on between those gigantic cliffs, passing

now through patches of bright moonlight and now through deep pools of

shadow, threading my way among clumps of bush or round the bases of tall

pillars of piled-up stones, till at length I came to the overhanging

cliffs at the end, which frowned down on me like the brows of some

titanic demon.

Well, I got to the end at last, and at the gate of the kraal fence was

met by one of those fierce and huge men who served the dwarf as guards.

Suddenly he emerged from behind a stone, and having scanned me for

a moment in silence, beckoned to me to follow him, as though I were

expected. A minute later I found myself face to face with Zikali, who

was seated in the clear moonlight just outside the shadow of his hut,

and engaged, apparently, in his favourite occupation of carving wood

with a rough native knife of curious shape.

For a while he took no notice of me; then suddenly looked up, shaking

back his braided grey locks, and broke into one of his great laughs.

"So it is you, Macumazahn," he said. "Well, I knew you were passing my

way and that Mameena would send you here. But why do you come to see the

'Thing-that-should-not-have-been-born'? To tell me how you fared with

the buffalo with the split horn, eh?"

"No, Zikali, for why should I tell you what you know already? Mameena

said you wished to talk with me, that was all."

"Then Mameena lied," he answered, "as is her nature, in whose throat

live four false words for every one of truth. Still, sit down,

Macumazahn. There is beer made ready for you by that stool; and give me

the knife and a pinch of the white man's snuff that you have brought for

me as a present."