ng things before, my
father, else would I fear greatly now. Yet let us talk face to face."

For a moment there was no reply, then with startling suddenness a light
flashed forth. On the floor just in front of me burned a small fore--
throwing a ball of green misty light upon the tomb-like blackness.
Within this I could make out the figure of a man--a very old man.

A man, did I say? _Whau_! It was more like that of a monkey, or a
great crouching spider. The limbs were thin as the shaft of a spear--
too withered and dried even to show the wrinkles of age; the face, too,
was like a dry piece of skin spread over the skull; and on the head a
wisp or two of white hair. If it was a man, in truth he must have lived
nearly as long as the world itself. His hands, which were like the
claws of a bird, were spread over the fire, which burned not upon the
floor, but in a large clay bowl. Into this he seemed to be sprinkling
some kind of powder which caused the green flame to leap and hiss.

But now another sound stopped my ears; an awesome and terrible sound--a
sound full of fear and agony indescribable--for it was again the
death-yell, such as I had heard in the darkness of the night when the
slave, Suru, looked upon the Red Terror and parted with life. And now
it was not night, but broad, clear, golden day--outside the cavern at
least--and the other slave had parted with life by the same dread means;
and I--while this thing of horror was abroad--this monster I had come to
slay--here was I imprisoned within the heart of the earth--held there at
the will of a being who seemed less a man than the ghost of one who had
died while the world was yet young. I leaped to my feet.

"Ha, ha, ha! Sit again, induna of the King, who knows not fear,"
cackled the shrivelled old monkey before me. "Ha, ha, ha! But now I
think thou art afraid."

"Afraid or not, thou evil scorpion--thou creeping wizard--if I stand not
in the light of day before I strike the ground with my foot three times,
this spear shall see if there be any blood to run from thy dried-up old
heart." And, raising the blade aloft, I struck the ground once with my
foot.

"Ha, ha, ha!" cackled the wizard again, still scattering his magic
powder into the fire. "Look again, Untuswa; look again."

I did look again, I could not do otherwise, and then I stood as one
turned into stone--with the spear still uplifted--unable to move hand or
foot, as I glared in front of me