besides, he
seems to have taken some care of you. But he's sure to have been found.
He's one of these Abantwana 'Mlimo, and too much in request just now."

"Is there anything in that Umlimo superstition, do you think, John?"

"There is, to this extent. From what I can get out of the natives it is
of Makalaka origin, and manifests itself in a voice speaking from a
cave. Now I believe that to be effected by ventriloquy. There is a
close `ring' of hierarchs of the Abstraction, probably most of them
ventriloquists, and they retain their power by the very simple but
seldom practised expedient of keeping their eyes and ears open and their
mouths shut. That is about the secret of all necromancy, I suspect,
from its very beginning."

"Then you don't believe in a particular prophet who talks out of a
cave?"

"No; if only for the reason that the cave the Umlimo is supposed to
speak from is one that no man could get into or out of--at least, so the
Matabele say. No; the thing is a mere abstraction; an idea cleverly
fostered by Messrs. Shiminya and Co. They shout up questions to the
cave, and ventriloquise the answers back."

What was it? Did the speaker actually hear at that moment a shadowy
echo of the mocking laugh which had been hurled at him from the
darkness, or did he imagine it? The latter, of course. But here, in
the very home of the superstition they had been discussing, could there,
after all, be more in it--more than met the eye? He could not but feel
vaguely uneasy. He glanced at his companion. She had altered neither
attitude nor expression. He felt relieved.

Over less forbidding looking ground their way now lay. The grey chaotic
billowings and craters of granite blocks gave way to table-land covered
with long grass and abundant foliage. Here they advanced ever with
caution, conversing but little, and then only in whispers. Indeed,
after the rest and comparative safety of their late refuge, it was like
entering into all the anxiety and apprehensions of peril renewed. Not
very fast, however, could they travel, for Nidia, though a good walker,
felt the heat, and John Ames, although, as he declared, he had "humped"
a heavier "swag" than that comprised by their load, yet it demoralised
him too.

A fireless camp amid the rocks, then on again in the cool of the
morning. And as their way lay over high ground, the sun rose upon such
a sea of vast and unrivalled wildness--castellated peaks and needl