re _tagati_, these white women. The
Amakiwa are the wisest people in the world, yet they treat such women as
these as though they were gods. I have seen it--yes, I, myself. Look,
too, at this woman. She is not afraid. There is a power behind her,
and I will not offer her violence."

Then the abominable wizard deemed it time to throw his trump card.

"Where is she going? To Sikumbutana," he said, lapsing into a
professional oracularism. "To whom is she going? To Jonemi. Nanzicele
was a chief in the _Amapolise_, but he is not now. Why not? Ask
Jonemi. This woman knows Jonemi--belongs to him, it may be; perhaps his
sister--perhaps his wife. Jonemi was in our power, but he escaped from
us. This woman is in our power; shall we let her go?"

This recapitulation of his wrongs and appeal to his vengeful feelings
was not entirely without effect upon Nanzicele. He hated John Ames,
whom he regarded, and rightly, as the main instrument of his own
degradation. He had only spared him, in the massacre of Inglefield's
hut, for a worse fate, intending to convey him to Shiminya's _muti_
kraal, and put him to death in the most atrocious form that the fiendish
brain of the wizard could devise. Then they had all become drunk, and
John Ames had escaped, and for all the trace he had left behind him
might just as well have disappeared into empty air. And now, here,
ready to his hand, was a scheme of vengeance upon the man he hated.
Turning his head, he looked intently at Nidia. But the aspect of her,
standing there calm and fearless--fearless because entirely ignorant of
what had happened at Sikumbutana, and still regarding this man, rough as
he had shown himself, as her protector by reason of his Police uniform--
appealed to the superstitious nature of the savage. He felt that it was
even as he had said. There was a power behind her.

"I will not harm her, Shiminya," he growled. "_Au_! I am sick of all
this killing of women. It will bring ill chance upon us. They ought to
have been shown a broad road out of the country."

"To show a broader road to more whites to come into it by? Thy words
are not words of sense, Nanzicele. Have it as thou wilt, however," said
the crafty wizard, who knew when to humour the savage and stubborn
temperament of his confederate. "We will take care of her this night--
ah--ah! in the only safe and secure place"--with a sinister chuckle.

"Be it so. I will not have her harmed, Shimin