was right, death alone could cut this knot, and
the reflection made me shiver.

That night I slept uneasily and dreamed. I dreamed that once
more I was in the Black Kloof in Zululand, seated in front of the
huts at the end of the kloof. Before me squatted the old wizard,
Zikali, wrapped up in his kaross--Zikali, the
"Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born," whom I had not seen for
years. Near him were the ashes of a fire, by the help of which I
knew he had been practising divination. He looked up and laughed
one of his terrible laughs.

"So you are here again, Macumazahn," he said, "grown older, but
still the same; here at the appointed hour. What do you come to
seek from the Opener of Roads? Not Mameena as I think this time.
No, no, it is she who seeks you this time, Macumazahn. She found
you once, did she not? Far away to the north among a strange
people who worshipped an Ivory Child, a people of whom I knew in
my youth, and afterwards, for was not their prophet, Harut, a
friend of mine and one of our brotherhood? She found you beneath
the tusks of the elephant, Jana, whom Macumazahn the skilful
could not hit. Oh! do not look astonished."

"How do you know?" I asked in my dream.

"Very simply, Macumazahn. A little yellow man named Hans has
been with me and told me all the story not an hour ago, after
which I sent for Mameena to learn if it were true. She will be
glad to meet you, Macumazahn, she who has a hungry heart that
does not forget. Oh! don't be afraid. I mean here beneath the
sun, in the land beyond there will be no need for her to meet you
since she will dwell ever at your side."

"Why do you lie to me, Zikali?" I seemed to ask. "How can a dead
man speak to you and how can I meet a woman who is dead?"

"Seek the answer to that question in the hour of the battle when
the white men, your brothers, fall beneath assegai as weeds fall
before the hoe--or perhaps before it. But have done with
Mameena, since she who never grows more old can well afford to
wait. It is not of Mameena that you came to speak to me; it is
of a fair white woman named Heddana you would speak, and of the
man she loves, you, who will ever be mixing yourself up in
affairs of others, and therefore must bear their burdens with no
pay save that of honour. Hearken, for the time is short. When
the storm bursts upon them bring hither the fair maiden, Heddana,
and the white lord, Mauriti, and I will shelter them for your