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It lay by my low bed-stead, a rough affair fashioned of poles and strung with rimpis or strings of raw hide, and by it, stroking its head, sat the witch-doctoress, Nombe. I remember how pleasing she looked, a perfect type of the eternal feminine with her graceful, rounded shape and her continual, mysterious smile which suggested so much more than any mortal woman has to give.
He replied that the messenger was a witch-doctoress named Nombe, and that she came from Zululand and said that I knew her father. I bade the man bring her to me, wondering who on earth she could be, for it is not usual for the Zulus to send women as messengers, and from whom she came.
This woman is of our company, being a witch-doctoress. I will send a Spirit to her, if you so will it, to warn her to watch for you and your company, O King, and show you the mouth of the kloof, where are some old huts and water. There you will never be found unless you are betrayed." "Who can betray me when none know whither I am going?" asked Cetewayo.
I told her of my ill success with Zikali, at which she was much disappointed. Then by an afterthought I suggested that perhaps she might try to do something in the way of getting a message through to the English camp at Ulundi, or elsewhere, by help of the witch-doctoress, Nombe, adding that I would speak to her myself had I not observed that I seemed to be out of favour with her of late.
No need to answer, White Man, but what fee, Chief, for the poor witch-doctoress whose skill you seek," she added in a whining voice. "Surely you would not that an old woman should work without a fee?" "I have none to offer you, mother, so I will be going," said Hadden, who began to feel himself satisfied with this display of the Bee's powers of observation and thought-reading.
So I told him everything, although until that moment I had not made up my mind to go upon this journey, I who had come here to his kraal by accident, or so it seemed, and by accident had delivered to him a certain message. "You wish to consult a white witch-doctoress, Macumazahn, who according to Zikali lives far to the north, as to the dead.
Now at this I grew angry, for it is not pleasant to a woman to hear that a man whom all know to be but a child compared to her can see things in water which she is not able to see, even though the things are born only of the false magic of a witch-doctoress.
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