urned away to the huts. There was plunder there, plenty of
it, and for some little while he turned his attention thitherward,
finding and appropriating to his own use a good many things of vast
value in his eyes, arms and ammunition, wearing apparel, tobacco, and
what not. But as he opened one of the huts there darted out against his
legs something grey and hairy and snarling, nearly upsetting him with
the shock and the scare. Before he had recovered from his startled
surprise the thing had vanished and now Nanzicele deemed it time to do
likewise.

The sun's rays grew longer and longer, throwing shadows over the
ill-omened abode of dark dealings, and the motionless body that lay
there. Then the body was motionless no longer. The limbs moved; next
the head was raised, but feebly. Shiminya sat up.

"Ah, ah! The Umtwana 'Mlimo is not so easy to kill, Nanzicele; and
thou--for this thou shalt die a thousand deaths," he murmured.

He reached over for the _tywala_ bowl, but it had been upset in the
scuffle and was empty. Parched with a feverish and burning thirst, the
sorcerer dragged himself on hands and knees to the hut wherein he knew
there was more of the liquor. He reached it at length, trailing broad
splashes of blood behind him. Creeping within, he found the great
calabash. It was empty. Nanzicele had drained it.

In a tremble of exhaustion Shiminya sank to the ground. The cold dews
of death were upon his face. The awful coldness throughout his frame,
the result of a prodigious loss of blood, became an agony. Air! A
great craving for air was upon him. His brain reeled, and his lungs
gasped. He felt as though he could no longer move.

Then the door was darkened, and something brushed in. With a superhuman
effort he collected his energies.

"Hamba, Lupiswana!" he gurgled. "Hamba-ke!"

But the brute took no notice of the voice before which it was wont to
cower and tremble. It crouched, snarling. Then it put its head down
and licked the blood-gouts which had fallen upon the ground from the
veins of its evil master.

The latter began to experience some of the agonies he had delighted to
witness in his victims. The savage beast had tasted blood--his blood.
And he himself was too weak to have resisted the onslaught of a rat.

Again he called, trying to infuse strength into his voice. But the
crafty beast knew his state exactly, it had learnt to gauge helplessness
in the case of too many other