e, thus giving his answers an oracular air, as though inspired by
the magic stuff into whose black depth he was gazing. "We die. They
live."

"_Hau_!" cried the listeners, fully comprehending the hint.

"Not many times will the moon be at full before this death is upon us,"
went on the wizard, still without looking up. "If there are no whites
left in the land, then will it be averted."

Again that hollow groan proceeded from the hut. Their feelings worked
up to an artificial pitch, the superstitious savages felt something like
a shudder run through their frames. But the imperturbable Shiminya went
on:

"There are two who must die--Pukele, the son of Mambane."

"He who is servant to Jonemi?" queried Madula.

"The same."

"Has he done wrong?" said Samvu, for the man named was one of Madula's
people, and neither of the brothers liked this edict.

"He knows too much," was the remorseless reply. "The other is Ntatu,
formerly wife of Makani."

A measure of relief came into the countenances of the two chiefs. A
woman more or less mattered nothing, but they did not like to sacrifice
one of their men.

"It is the `word' of Umlimo," pursued Shiminya, decisively. "This must
be." And for the first time he raised his eyes, and fixed them upon the
two chiefs with cruel, snake-like stare.

"What is the life of a man, more or less, when Umlimo has spoken?" said
Zazwe, thus throwing in the weight of his influence with the dictum of
the sorcerer. "A man, too, who is faithful to one of these whites set
over us! _Au_! Umlimo is wise."

This carried the day; and after some more talk, mostly "dark," and
consisting of hints, the three chiefs, gathering up their assegais,
withdrew.

Left alone, Shiminya still sat there, satisfied that his sanguinary
edict would be carried out. A dead silence reigned over the great thorn
thicket, and as though the satanic influence which seemed to brood upon
the place imparted itself to wild Nature, even the very birds forbore to
flutter and chirp in its immediate vicinity. The sun sank to the
western horizon, shedding its arrows of golden light upon the myriad
sharp points of the sea of thorns, then dipped below the rim of the
world, and still the grim wizard squatted, like a crafty, cruel,
bloodthirsty spider, in the midst of his vast web, though indeed the
comparison is a libel on the insect, who slays to appease hunger,
whereas this human spider was wont to doom his victims ou