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Oh! now she knew; it must be Nahoon, who had been killed up yonder, and whose dead body the waters had brought down to the haunted forest as they had brought her alive. Yes, it must be Nahoon, and she would be forced to see her husband devoured before her eyes. The thought of it overwhelmed her. That he should die by order of the king was natural, but that he should be buried thus!
Nahoon made no answer, but Hadden said: "A small thing, mother. I would know if I shall prosper in my hunting." "In your hunting, White Man; what hunting? The hunting of game, of money, or of women? Well, one of them, for a-hunting you must ever be; that is your nature, to hunt and be hunted.
Nahoon was walking across a little open space about ten spaces ahead of him where Hadden could see him very well, whilst he himself was under the shadow of a large tree with low horizontal branches running out from the trunk. "Nahoon," he said. The Zulu turned round, and took a step towards him. "No, do not move, I pray. Stand where you are, or I shall be obliged to shoot you.
"No, Inkoos, why should I tell Nahoon your secrets? I have said 'nay' to you, not 'yea, therefore he has no right to know," and she stooped to lift the gourd of water. Hadden considered the situation rapidly, for his repulse only made him the more determined to succeed. Of a sudden under the emergency he conceived a scheme, or rather its rough outline.
If it came to the worst, he could put a bullet through him, which he considered he would be justified in doing, seeing that in reality the man was his jailor. Should this necessity arise, he felt indeed that he could face it without undue compunction, for in truth he disliked Nahoon; at times he even hated him.
It was not Nahoon, but she recognised the face for that of one of the party of executioners. How did he come here? Had Nahoon killed him? Had Nahoon escaped? She could not tell, and at the best it was improbable, but still the sight of this dead soldier lit her heart with a faint ray of hope, for how did he come to be dead if Nahoon had no hand in his death?
"Who lives there?" asked Hadden. "Do you think that she could gather enough wisdom to tell me whether I am going to kill any buffalo, Nahoon?" "Mayhap, White Man, but," he added with a little smile, "those who visit the Bee's hive may hear nothing, or they may hear more than they wish for. The words of that Bee have a sting." "Good; I will see if she can sting me."
It would have been better if I could have relied upon myself to get rid of Nahoon and his respected uncle a couple of shots would do it in the water. But then that would be murder and murder is unpleasant; whereas the other thing is only the delivery to justice of two base deserters, a laudable action in a military country.
In several quarters of the forest, but from how far away it was impossible to tell, there rose a curious sound, as of people calling to each other in fear but in no articulate language. Nahoon shivered. "It is the Esemkofu," he said, "the ghosts who have no tongue, and who can only wail like infants. Let us be going; this place is bad for mortals."
Still she lived on, though often she desired to die, for if her father was dead, the corpse she had found was not the corpse of Nahoon, and in her heart there still shone that spark of home. Yet what she hoped for she could not tell.
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