little assegai that lay beside him, he proffered it to me, adding, Be brave now and fall on that. Then before I have counted sixty the road will be wide open, but whether you will see anything on it I cannot tell you.
Again I shook my head and answered,
It is against our law. Also while I still live I desire to know whether I shall meet certain others on that road after my time has come to cross the River. Perhaps you who deal with spirits, can prove the matter to me, which no one else seems able to do.
Oho!
laughed Zikali again, What do my ears hear? Am I, the poor Zulu cheat, as you will remember once you called me, Macumazahn, asked to show that which is hidden from all the wisdom of the great White People?
The question is,
I answered with irritation, not what you are asked to do, but what you can do.
That I do not know yet, Macumazahn. Whose spirits do you desire to see? If that of a woman called Mameena is one of them, I think that perhaps I whom she loved—
[1]
She is not one of them, Zikali. Moreover, if she loved you, you paid back her love with death.
Which perhaps was the kindest thing I could do, Macumazahn, for reasons that you may be able to guess, and others with which I will not trouble you. But if not hers, whose? Let me look, let me look! Why there seem to be two of them, head-wives, I mean, and I thought that white men only took one wife. Also a multitude of others; their faces float up in the water of your mind. An old man with grey hair, little children, perhaps they were brothers and sisters, and some who may be friends. Also very clear indeed that Mameena whom you do not wish to see. Well, Macumazahn, this is unfortunate, since she is the only one whom I can show you, or rather put you in the way of finding. Unless indeed there are other Kaffir women—
What do you mean?
I asked.
I mean, Macumazahn, that only black feet travel on the road which I can open; over those in which ran white blood I have no power.
Then it is finished,
I said, rising again and taking a step or two towards the gate.
- ↑ For the history of Mameena see the book called
Child of Storm.
—Editor.
