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The owner seemed to read my disappointment in my eyes, for he laughed softly as he waved his hand, indicating the emptiness of the hut. "I do not need the things for which you are looking, 'mlungu," he said; "my magic is different from that of all other nyangas and much more potent, as mayhap you shall see for yourself.
Mafuta is a great nyanga, and perchance he saw a vision of thine approach in his magic smoke. How should I know? It is not good for mere ordinary mortals to enquire too curiously into the doings of the nyangas."
I had no doubt that many of the strange stories to which I had listened had originated in some very trivial and ordinary circumstance which had been magnified and distorted into a weird and supernatural happening by the superstitious credulity of the original narrator; but there were others of an equally weird and unaccountable character, which had been told by hard-headed, intelligent, unimaginative men as having come within the scope of their own personal experience, that seemed to indicate that the nyangas really possessed powers denied to the great majority of their fellow-men.
Presently it became obvious that he had won the game, since Panda only said: "Why should I slay one whom I have befriended in the past, and why do you speak such heavy words of death in my ears, O, Zikali the Wise, which of late have heard so much of death?" He sighed, adding: "Be pleased now, to tell us of this medicine, or, if you will not, go, and I will send for other Nyangas."
Moreover, the lady Nandie, in my presence, searched in the straw of the doorway of the hut and found there, wrapped in soft hide, certain medicines such as the Nyangas sell, wherewith those who consult them can bewitch their enemies, or cause those whom they desire to love them or to hate their wives or husbands. That is all I know of the story, O King."
I had heard many extraordinary and apparently well-authenticated stories told respecting the alleged power of the nyangas to visualise distant happenings, to foretell coming events, to discover the whereabouts of lost articles, to read the thoughts of men and lay bare their most cherished secrets, and also to inflict upon their enemies loss, suffering, and even death.
As I soon heard, they were of a single family, the grandfather, the father, and the eldest son, who had been seized upon some ridiculous charge of witchcraft, but really in order that the king might take their cattle. Having been tried and condemned by the Nyangas, or witch-doctors, these poor wretches were now doomed to die.
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