away through the valleys, across
the streams, up the mountains, till it is lost in the 'heaven above.'
Thus on this feather, burnt in my magic fire, I seem to see something of
your future, O my father Macumazana. Far and far your road runs," and he
drew his finger along the feather. "Here is a journey," and he flicked
away a carbonised flake, "here is another, and another, and another,"
and he flicked off flake after flake. "Here is one that is very
successful, it leaves you rich; and here is yet one more, a wonderful
journey this in which you see strange things and meet strange people.
Then"--and he blew on the feather in such a fashion that all the charred
filaments (Brother John says that _laminae_ is the right word for them)
fell away from it--"then, there is nothing left save such a pole as some
of my people stick upright on a grave, the Shaft of Memory they call it.
O, my father, you will die in a distant land, but you will leave a great
memory behind you that will live for hundreds of years, for see how
strong is this quill over which the fire has had no power. With some of
these others it is quite different," he added.

"I daresay," I broke in, "but, Mavovo, be so good as to leave me out of
your magic, for I don't at all want to know what is going to happen to
me. To-day is enough for me without studying next month and next year.
There is a saying in our holy book which runs: 'Sufficient to the day is
its evil.'"

"Quite so, O Macumazana. Also that is a very good saying as some of
those hunters of yours are thinking now. Yet an hour ago they were
forcing their shillings on me that I might tell them of the future. And
_you_, too, want to know something. You did not come through that gate
to quote to me the wisdom of your holy book. What is it, _Baba_? Be
quick, for my Snake is getting very tired. He wishes to go back to his
hole in the world beneath."

"Well, then," I answered in rather a shamefaced fashion, for Mavovo had
an uncanny way of seeing into one's secret motives, "I should like to
know, if you can tell me, which you can't, what has become of the white
man with the long beard whom you black people call Dogeetah? He should
have been here to go on this journey with us; indeed, he was to be our
guide and we cannot find him. Where is he and why is he not here?"

"Have you anything about you that belonged to Dogeetah, Macumazana?"

"No," I answered; "that is, yes," and from my pocket I produced the
stum