d through all these things and will in time recover,
though not yet."

"I hope so, Zikali, though on the whole I am not sure that I wish
to recover."

"Yes, you do, Macumazahn, because the religion of you white men
makes you fear death and what may come after it. You think of
what you call your sins and are afraid lest you should be
tortured because of them, not understanding that the spirit must
be judged not by what the flesh has done but by what the spirit
desired to do, by _will_ not by _deed,_ Macumazahn. The evil man
is he who wishes to do evil, not he who wishes to do good and
falls now and again into evil. Oh! I have hearkened to your
white teachers and I know, I know."

"Then by your own standard you are evil, Zikali, since you wished
to bring about war, and not in vain."

"Oho! Macumazahn, you think that, do you, who cannot understand
that what seems to be evil is often good. I wished to bring
about war and brought it about, and maybe what bred the wish was
all that I have suffered in the past. But say you, who have seen
what the Zulu Power means, who have seen men, women and children
killed by the thousand to feed that Power, and who have seen,
too, what the English Power means, is it evil that I should wish
to destroy the House of the Zulu kings that the English House may
take its place and that in a time to come the Black people may be
free?"

"You are clever, Zikali, but it is of your own wrongs that you
think. How about that skull which you kissed in the Vale of
Bones?"

"Mayhap, Macumazahn, but my wrongs are the wrongs of a nation,
therefore I think of the nation, and at least I do not fear death
like you white men. Now hearken. Presently your friends will
tell you a story. The lady Heddana will tell you how I made use
of her for a certain purpose, for which purpose indeed I drew the
three of you into Zululand, because without her I could not have
brought about this war into which Cetewayo did not wish to enter.
When you have heard that story, do not judge me too hardly,
Macumazahn, who had a great end to gain."

"Yet whatever the story may be, I do judge you hardly, Zikali,
who tormented me with a false tale, causing the woman Kaatje to
lie to me and swear that she saw these two dead before her--how I
know not."

"She did not lie to you, Macumazahn. Has not such a one as I the
power to make a fat fool think that she saw what she did not see?
As to how! How did I make you think i