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"I do not know," I groaned, "for I never touched her." "How he lies! Oh! how he lies even about what our eyes saw," said Cetewayo reflectively as I blundered past him back to my seat, on which I sank half swooning. When I got my wits again the figure that pretended to be Mameena was speaking, I suppose in answer to some question of Zikali's which I had not heard. It said
Since so far as I could judge in that uncertain light, nothing seemed to be wrong with them except weariness, for three of them were still lying down, I walked on to the gate of the fence which surrounded Zikali's big hut, proposing to wait there until some one appeared by whom I could send my message. I reached the gate which I tried and found to be fastened on its inner side.
It was that of the woman called Mameena who brought about the war, and the wrapping which covered it was of the hair that once grew upon her head. "The words are Zikali's," I said, returning her the knife, "but why do you call yourself the child of one who is too old to be a father?" "The Master says that my great-grandmother was his daughter and that therefore I am his child.
Now it was after this, on the northern borders of Zululand, that Zikali's Great Medicine, as Hans called it, really played its chief part, for without it I think that we should have been killed, every one of us. I do not propose to set out the business in detail; it is too long and intricate.
Of all of which I understood and understand little, except that she had grasped the elements of some truth which she could not express in clear and definite language. One day I was seated in Zikali's hut whither by permission I had come to ask the latest news, when suddenly Nombe appeared and crouched down before him.
While Heda was away I was kept a prisoner and watched day and night by Zikali's people who would not let me stir a yard, but otherwise treated me kindly. Then one day at sunrise, or shortly after it, Heda re-appeared and told me all this story, for the end of which, as you may imagine, I thanked God.
"Why do you wear that pretty likeness of the Great One yonder over your heart, as I have known you do with things that belonged to women in past days, Baas? Do you know that it is Zikali's Great Medicine, nothing less, as everyone does throughout the land? When Zikali sends an order far away, he always sends that image with it, for then he who receives the order knows that he must obey or die.
I shook my head blankly, whereat they murmured together and made as though they would go. Then it was that Hans, who understood something of Arabic as he did of most African tongues, pulled my sleeve and whispered in my ear. "The Great Medicine, Baas! Show them Zikali's Great Medicine." Here was an idea.
Sleep well, Macumazahn, and do not dream too much of what you heard and saw in Zikali's house." Then before I could speak she turned and left me. I did not sleep well; I slept very badly.
He paused; and the silence was so intense that the crackling of Zikali's fire, which kept on burning brightly although I saw no fuel added to it, sounded quite loud. Presently it was broken, first by a dog near at hand, howling horribly at the moon, and next by the hooting of a great owl that flitted across the donga, the shadow of its wide wings falling for a moment on the king.
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