he simple reason that these were among the things he
had not learned. The agents concerned in that last tragedy had their
own motives for not advertising it abroad.

"Who were the indunas he was talking with?" asked Nidia, suddenly.

"Dey izinduna from Sikumbutana," replied the warrior, as she thought,
evasively; and in truth this was so, for although he would do anything
to assist his former master, or one in whom his former master took an
interest, Pukele's native instincts were against revealing too much.
There was always in the background a possibility of the whites regaining
the upper hand, in which case it was just as well that the prime movers
in the rising should not be known to too many by name.

"But if they were his own people they would not harm him?"

"Not harm him, missie. He walk away."

"Then why is he not here, long before now?" Then, excitedly, "Pukele,
you don't think--they--followed him up in the dark--and--and killed
him?"

This again Pukele thought was far from unlikely. But he dissembled. It
was more probable, he declared, that Jonemi had taken a longer way to
come back in order to throw off his track any who might be following.
Or he might have discovered another impi and be forced to travel in the
opposite direction to avoid it. He might be back any time.

This for her benefit. But in his heart of hearts the Matabele warrior
thought that the chances of his former master being still in the land of
the living were so small as to be not worth reckoning with. So he made
up the fire, and cooked birds for Nidia and prepared to watch over her
safety.

That night weird sounds came floating up to their resting-place, a
rhythmical distant roaring, now subsiding into silence, then bursting
forth again, till it gathered volume like the rolling of thunder. Fires
twinkled forth, too, like eyes in the darkness, among the far windings
of the hills.

"What is that, Pukele?" cried Nidia, starting up.

"Matabele make dance, missie. Big dance. Umlimo dance Matabele call
him," replied the savage, who was listening intently.

"Umlimo dance. Ah! I remember. Is there an Umlimo cave down there,
where they are?" For she was thinking of the place John Ames had
pointed out to her the day before, and his remark that if it wasn't a
real Umlimo cave, it ought to be. And these strange wild sounds seemed
to proceed from about that very spot.

"_An_! Umlimo cave, what dat, missie?" inquired Pukele.