"'Only what?' asked Bangu, hesitating.
"'Only I wonder, Bangu, what you will think of the world in which you
will find yourself before to-morrow's moon arises. Come back thence and
tell me, Bangu, for there are so many worlds beyond the sun, and I would
learn for certain which of them such a one as you inhabits: a man who
for hatred and for gain murders the father and the mother and then
butchers the child--the child that could slay a warrior who has seen
war--with the spear hot from his mother's heart.' "'Do you mean that I shall die if I kill this lad?' shouted Bangu in a
great voice.
"'What else?' answered Zikali, taking another pinch of snuff.
"'This, Wizard; that we will go together.' "'Good, good!' laughed the dwarf. 'Let us go together. Long have I
wished to die, and what better companion could I find than Bangu, Chief
of the Amakoba, Slayer of Children, to guard me on a dark and terrible
road. Come, brave Bangu, come; kill me if you can,' and again he laughed
at him.
"Now, Macumazahn, the people of Bangu fell back muttering, for they
found this business horrible. Yes, even those who held my arms let go of
them.
"'What will happen to me, Wizard, if I spare the boy?' asked Bangu.
"Zikali stretched out his hand and touched the scratch that the assegai
had made in me here. Then he held up his finger red with my blood,
and looked at it in the light of the moon; yes, and tasted it with his
tongue.
"'I think this will happen to you, Bangu,' he said. 'If you spare this
boy he will grow into a man who will kill you and many others one day.
But if you do not spare him I think that his spirit, working as spirits
can do, will kill you to-morrow. Therefore the question is, will
you live a while or will you die at once, taking me with you as your
companion? For you must not leave me behind, brother Bangu.' "Now Bangu turned and walked away, stepping over the body of my mother,
and all his people walked away after him, so that presently Zikali the
Wise and Little and I were left alone.
"'What! have they gone?' said Zikali, lifting up his eyes from the
ground. 'Then we had better be going also, Son of Matiwane, lest he
should change his mind and come back. Live on, Son of Matiwane, that you
may avenge Matiwane.'"
"A nice tale," I said. "But what happened afterwards?"
"Zikali took me away and nurtured me at his kraal in the Black Kloof,
where he lived alone save for his servants, for in that kraal he would
suffer no woman to set foot, Macumazahn. He taught me much wisdom and
many secret things, and would have made a great doctor of me had I so
willed. But I willed it not who find spirits ill company, and there are
many of them about the Black Kloof, Macumazahn. So in the end he said:
'Go where your heart calls, and be a warrior, Saduko. But know this:
You have opened a door that can never be shut again, and across the
threshold of that door spirits will pass in and out for all your life,
whether you seek them or seek them not.' "'It was you who opened the door, Zikali,' I answered angrily.