ut are they ever as beautiful as those of
a loving dog? It lay by my low bed-stead, a rough affair
fashioned of poles and strung with rimpis or strings of raw hide,
and by it, stroking its head, sat the witch-doctoress, Nombe. I
remember how pleasing she looked, a perfect type of the eternal
feminine with her graceful, rounded shape and her continual,
mysterious smile which suggested so much more than any mortal
woman has to give.

"Good-day to you, Macumazahn," she said in her gentle voice, "you
have gone through much since last we met on the night before Goza
took you away to Ulundi."

Now remembering all, I was filled with indignation against this
little humbug.

"The last time we met, Nombe," I said, "was when you played the
part of a woman who is dead in the Vale of Bones by the king's
kraal."

She regarded me with a kindly commiseration, and answered,
shaking her head--

"You have been very ill, Macumazahn, and your spirit still tricks
you. I played the part of no woman in any valley by the king's
kraal, nor were my eyes rejoiced with the sight of you there or
elsewhere till they brought you to this place, so changed that I
should scarcely have known you."

"You little liar!" I said rudely.

"Do the white people always name those liars who tell them true
things they cannot understand?" she inquired with a sweet
innocence. Then without waiting for an answer, she patted my
hand as though I were a fretful child and gave me some soup in a
gourd, saying, "Drink it, it is good. The lady Heddana made it
herself in the white man's fashion."

I drank the soup, which was very good, and as I handed back the
gourd, answered--

"Kaatje has told me that the lady Heddana is dead. Can the dead
make soup?"

She considered the point while she threw some bits of meat out of
the bottom of the gourd to the dog, Lost, then replied--

"I do not know, Macumazahn, or indeed whether the dead eat as we
do. Next time my Spirit visits me I will make inquiry and tell
you the answer. But I do know that it is very strange that you,
who always turn your back upon the truth, are so ready to accept
falsehoods. Why should you believe that the lady Heddana is dead
just because Kaatje told you so, when I who am still alive had
sworn to you that I would protect her with my life? Nay, speak
no more now. To-morrow if you are well enough you shall see and
judge for yourself."

She drew up the kaross over me, again patted my