to suck its strength from carrion, and remains unable to
soar away into the clean air of heaven.

Something touched my hand and I reflected dreamily that if I had
been still alive, for in a way I believed that I was dead, I
should have thought it was a dog's tongue. With a great effort I
lifted my arm, opened my eyes and looked at the hand against the
light, for there was light, to see it was so thin that this light
shone through between the bones. Then I let it fall again, and
lo! it rested on the head of a dog which went on licking it.

A dog! What dog? Now I remembered; one that I had found on the
field of Isandhlwana. Then I must be still alive. The thought
made me cry, for I could feel the tears run down my cheeks, not
with joy but with sorrow. I did not wish to go on living. Life
was too full of struggle and of bloodshed and bereavement and
fear and all horrible things. I was prepared to exchange my part
in it just for rest, for the blessing of deep, unending sleep in
which no more dreams could come, no more cups of joy could be
held to thirsting lips, only to be snatched away.

I heard something shuffling towards me at which the dog growled,
then seemed to slink away as though it were afraid. I opened my
eyes again, looked, and closed them once more in terror, for what
I saw suggested that perhaps I was dead after all and had reached
that hell which a certain class of earnest Christian promises to
us as the reward of the failings that Nature and those who begat
us have handed on to us as a birth doom. It was something
unnatural, grey-headed, terrific--doubtless a devil come to
torment me in the inquisition vaults of Hades. Yet I had known
the like when I was alive. How had it been called? I
remembered, "The-thing-that-never-should-have-been-born." Hark!
It was speaking in that full deep voice which was unlike to any
other.

"Greeting, Macumazahn," it said. "I see that you have come back
from among the dead with whom you have been dwelling for a moon
and more. It is not wise of you, Macumazahn, yet I am glad who
have matched my skill against Death and won, for now you will
have much to tell me about his kingdom."

So it was Zikali--Zikali who had butchered my friends.

"Away from me, murderer!" I said faintly, "and let me die, or
kill me as you did the others."

He laughed, but very softly, not in his usual terrific fashion,
repeating the word "murderer" two or three times. Then with h