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All day he worked thus, but after the day came the night when he did not work, and those nights he dreaded. For then the languor, not of body, but of mind, which the poison the old witch-doctoress had given to Ishmael had left behind it, would overcome him, bringing with it black despair, and his grief would get a hold of him, torturing his heart.
She was a witch-doctoress sure enough, for she wore in her hair the regulation bladders and about her neck the circlet of baboon's teeth, also round her middle a girdle from which hung little bags of medicines. She contemplated me gravely and I contemplated her, waiting till she should choose to speak.
The hanging of a witch-doctoress after a formal trial upon the charge of theft of cattle was no great matter in those days, for such thefts were common and a cause of much trouble to out-lying farmers, nor would anyone in these half-settled regions be likely to look too closely into the rights and wrongs of an execution on account of them.
Then, with a strange strength, she thrust her from the hut, calling to Zinti to take charge of her and do as she had bidden him, adding that if he failed in this task she would blast his body and haunt his spirit. Thus parted Sihamba, the Kaffir witch-doctoress, and my daughter Suzanne, whom she kept safe for nearly three years, and saved at last at the cost of her own life.
"Let the white lord forgive the jest of a poor old witch-doctoress," she said in a whining voice. "I have so much to do with Death that his name leaps to my lips," and she glanced first at the circle of skulls about her, then towards the waterfall that fed the gloomy pool upon whose banks her hut was placed. "Look," she said simply.
Nothing, but I shall win that kiss yet, yes, and before very long." Now in a valley of the hills, something over an hour's ride from the farm, and not far from the road that ran to Swart Piet's place, lived the little Kaffir witch-doctoress, Sihamba Ngenyanga.
"This: When I was down there at the Heer Botmar's place, I saw the witch-doctoress Sihamba, who has a hut upon the farm. I was some way off, but I think that she recognised me, as she might well do seeing that it was I who set the rope about her neck when you wished to hang her. Now if she did know me all your plans may be in vain, for that woman has the Sight and she will guess them.
In her case, however, I hope that she has found some hole to creep through, for although she was a black witch-doctoress, according to her knowledge she was a good woman and a brave one, as the reader will say also before he comes to the end of this story.
This place he described with minuteness, so minutely, indeed, that in her dream, Rachel recognised it well. It was the spot where the witch-doctoress had died. He went on with his story; he told of her appearance riding on the white horse and surrounded by an impi.
I turned and next instant was out of the hut, pursued by the terrible laughter of Zikali. Outside in the cool night air I recovered myself, sufficiently at any rate to be able to think, and saw at once that the thing was an illusion for which Zikali had prepared my mind very carefully by means of the young witch-doctoress, Nombe.
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