ointed stick, and no ornaments save three black wooden beads suspended
to his neck and two gnu's tails on his left arm, I felt no fear, for he
was aware that I, and not Gungana, had saved his life, and I knew he
would do nothing to harm me. So I breathed freely and watched the
proceedings.

"Unlike the others, Masuka, as he went round the circle, looked at
nobody. With his head thrown back, he stared skyward, muttering the
while in a strange language, and every now and then breaking into a
short yelling chant. But when he returned before the King he had named
no one.

"`Well, Father of the Fire-spirit?' said Umzilikazi. `Who is to die?'

"We saw that blank look come over the old man's face which had come upon
it that other time when we thought him dead. It was as if his spirit
had suddenly left his body. Then he fell over and lay on the ground,
still, motionless as a stone.

"All gazed upon him with awe and dread, gazed upon him in a silence
which was only broken by the deep breathing of the multitude. At length
his lips were seen to move. Words came forth:

"`Who has bewitched the soldier of the King?'

"The voice was so strange and far-away and hollow that it seemed to come
from the very depths of the earth. Moreover, the eyes of the old Mosutu
were so turned inwards that nothing but the whites were visible at a
time. As he proceeded with his questions and answers he would roll his
eyeballs around in a manner that was dreadful to behold. It was as if
they were quite loose in his head.

"`Who has bewitched the soldier of the King? Is it Nkaleni?'

"`It is not Nkaleni.'

"`Is it Matupe?'

"`It is not Matupe.'

"`Is it Nangeza?'

"At these words, _Nkose_, and the pause that followed them, I was so
startled that I nearly let fall the shield upon the royal head-ring,
which would have meant my instant death. As it was, I found I was
holding it in such wise as to allow the sun to scorch one of the King's
ears; but Umzilikazi was, fortunately, so interested in the
witch-finding that he failed to notice it. Then, to my relief, the
answer came:

"`It is not Nangeza.'

"In this way old Masuka ran through a number of names, and the terror
upon the countenances of the women named, for they were all women, until
the answer came, was something to witness. Then he changed the form of
question.

"`Were there two in it?'

"`There were two in it.'

"`Was it Shushungani?'

"Such an exclamation of