_ don't mind much, for I
should rather like to begin again a little younger somewhere else, but
just think what a noise Sammy will make!" and turning he crept out as he
had crept in.

"Here's a nice position," I groaned to Stephen when he had gone. "I,
a white man, who, in spite of some coincidences with which I am
acquainted, know that all this Kaffir magic is bosh am to beg a savage
to tell me something of which he _must_ be ignorant. That is, unless we
educated people have got hold of the wrong end of the stick altogether.
It is humiliating; it isn't Christian, and I'm hanged if I'll do it!"

"I dare say you will be--hanged I mean--whether you do it or whether you
don't," replied Stephen with his sweet smile. "But I say, old fellow,
how do you know it is all bosh? We are told about lots of miracles which
weren't bosh, and if miracles ever existed, why can't they exist now?
But there, I know what you mean and it is no use arguing. Still, if
you're proud, I ain't. I'll try to soften the stony heart of Mavovo--we
are rather pals, you know--and get him to unroll the book of his occult
wisdom," and he went.

A few minutes later I was called out to receive a sheep which, with
milk, native beer, some corn, and other things, including green forage
for the donkeys, Bausi had sent for us to eat. Here I may remark that
while we were among the Mazitu we lived like fighting cocks. There was
none of that starvation which is, or was, so common in East Africa where
the traveller often cannot get food for love or money--generally because
there is none.

When this business was settled by my sending a message of thanks to the
king with an intimation that we hoped to wait upon him on the morrow
with a few presents, I went to seek Sammy in order to tell him to kill
and cook the sheep. After some search I found, or rather heard him
beyond a reed fence which divided two of the huts. He was acting as
interpreter between Stephen Somers and Mavovo.

"This Zulu man declares, Mr. Somers," he said, "that he quite
understands everything you have been explaining, and that it is probable
that we shall all be butchered by this savage Bausi, if we cannot tell
him when the white man, Dogeetah, whom he loves, will arrive here. He
says also that he thinks that by his magic he could learn when this will
happen--if it is to happen at all--(which of course, Mr. Somers, for
your private information only, is a mighty lie of the ignorant heathen).
He ad