,
this is otherwise. They, too, love, by Nature's law, but always
behind there is something greater than love, although often they
do not understand what that may be. To be powerful, therefore, a
woman must be one who does not love too much. If she cannot love
at all, then she is hated and has no power, but she must not love
too much.

"Once I thought that I had found such a woman; she was named
Mameena, whom all men worshipped and who played with all men, as
I played with her. But what was the end of it? Just as things
were going very well she learned to love too much some man of
strange notions, who would have thwarted me and brought
everything to nothing, and therefore I had to kill her, for which
I was sorry."

Here he paused to take some more snuff, watching me over the
spoon as he drew it up his great nostrils, but as I said nothing,
went on--

"Now after Mameena was dead I bethought me that I would rear up a
woman who could still love but should never love a man and
therefore never become mad or foolish, because I believed that it
was only man who in taking her heart from woman, would take her
wits also. This child, Nombe, came to my hand, and as I thought,
so I did. Never mind how I did it, by medicine perhaps, by magic
perhaps, by watering her pride and making it grow tall perhaps,
or by all three. At least it was done, and this I know of Nombe,
she will never care for any man except as a woman may care for a
brother.

"But now see what happens. She, the wise, the instructed, the
man-despiser, meets a woman of another race who is sweet and
good, and learns to love her, not as maids and mothers love, but
as one loves the Spirit that she worships. Yes, yes, to her she
is a goddess to be worshipped, one whom she desires to serve with
all her heart and strength, to bow down before, making offerings,
and at the end to follow into death. So it comes about that this
Nombe, whose mind I thought to make as the wings of a bird
floating on the air while it searches for its prey, has become
even madder than other women. It is a disappointment to me,
Macumazahn."

"It may be a disappointment to you, Zikali, and all that you say
is very interesting. But to us it is a danger. Tell me, will
you command Nombe to cease from her folly?"

"Will I forbid the mist to rise, or the wind to blow, or the
lightning to strike? As she is, she is. Her heart is filled
with black jealousy of Mauriti and of you, as