rt from me a while, and go upon
a journey of purification."

"Whither shall I go and who will go with me?" she asked sullenly.

"I will find you companions, women discreet and skilled. And as to
where you shall go, I will tell you. You shall go upon an embassy to the
Prince Hafela."

"Are you not afraid that I should stop there?" she asked again, with a
flash of her eyes. "It is true that I never learned all the story, yet
I thought that the prince was not so glad to hand me back to you as you
would have had me to believe. The price you paid for me must have been
good, Hokosa, and mayhap it had to do with the death of a king."

"I am not afraid," he answered, setting his teeth, "because I know that
whatever your heart may desire, my will follows you, and while I live
that is a cord you cannot break unless I choose to loose it, Noma. I
command you to be faithful to me and to return to me, and these commands
you must obey. Hearken: you taunted me just now, saying that I sat like
a dotard in the sun and advanced you nothing. Well, I will advance you,
for both our sakes, but mostly for your own, since you desire it, and it
must be done through the Prince Hafela. I cannot leave this kraal, for
day and night I am watched, and before I had gone an hour's journey
I should be seized; also here I have work to do. But the Place of
Purification is secret, and when you reach it you need not bide there,
you can travel on into the mountains till you come to the town of the
Prince Hafela. He will receive you gladly, and you shall whisper this
message in his ear:--

"'These are the words of Hokosa, my husband, which he has set in my
mouth to deliver to you, O Prince. Be guided by them and grow great;
reject them and die a wanderer, a little man of no account. But first,
this is the price that you shall swear by the sacred oath to pay to
Hokosa, if his wisdom finds favour in your sight and through it you come
to victory: That after you, the king, he, Hokosa, shall be the first man
in our land, the general of the armies, the captain of the council, the
head of the doctors, and that to him shall be given half the cattle of
Nodwengo, who now is king. Also to him shall be given power to stamp out
the new faith which overruns the land like a foreign weed, and to deal
as he thinks fit with those who cling thereto.'

"Now, Noma, when he has sworn this oath in your ear, calling down ruin
upon his own head, should he break one word of it, a