interfered with since because of our custom
under which no one can be killed twice.

She was very, very old--so old that beyond a wisp or two of white wool
her scalp was entirely bald. Her limbs were mere bits of stick, to
which even her few rags of clothing would hardly cling. Looking at her
squatting there, I thought she would make an exact mate for old Gasitye,
as I had seen him in the _tagati_ cave, squatting in like fashion; and I
must have laughed at the thought, for she said, with some show of fire:

"Laugh, Untuswa, laugh, I am old and shrivelled, am I not? But that is
a complaint you will never suffer from. Oh, no! Oh, no!"

"What mean you, mother?" I said, pausing as I was about to continue on
my way, for there was that in her words which fitted not well in with my
thoughts just then. "I am a fighting man, and such may reasonably not
live to grow old."

"Ah, ah! A fighting man. Thou art more. He who would sit in the seat
of the mighty is hardly likely to die of old age," she answered slowly,
poking her head forward with a meaning chuckle.

"Now," I thought, "this old witch knows too much. I will just drop her
over into the river and make _her_ safe."

But before I could do so, she again croaked out:

"What will you give to know something, Untuswa? What will you give me
if I tell you that which you would most like to learn?"

The blood seemed to stand still within me at the words. "That which I
would most like to learn"--the secret of Lalusini's disappearance, of
course. I strove to restrain all semblance of anxiety, but the dim eyes
of the old hag seemed to pierce my thoughts through and through.

"If it is indeed something I would like to learn, mother, then will I
give anything--not too great--you may choose to ask. But, beware of
fooling me with old women's tales."

"Ha, ha! And the fate of the Daughter of the Great--is that an old
woman's tale?"

"Tell me of that, if you know it, mother," I said.

"Ah, ah! If I know it. See now, Untuswa, I am old--so old that I am as
they of another world. And the other world moves about at night--and
I--often I steal out at night and talk with those of another world."

I murmured assent, and she went on.

"See yon pool, Untuswa?" pointing up the river where the alligators
dwelt, to whom were cast those whom the King had doomed to die. "Often,
at night, I go out and sit over that pool that I may talk with the
ghosts of them who have die