ociety in London, where I had a long
talk with him. My reputation does not follow me home, and he thought I
was an English publisher with an interest in missions. You see I had
no evidence to connect him with I.D.B., and besides I fancied that his
real game was something bigger than that; so I just bided my time and
watched.

'I did my best to get on to his dossier, but it was no easy job.
However, I found out a few things. He had been educated in the States,
and well educated too, for the man is a good scholar and a great
reader, besides the finest natural orator I have ever heard. There was
no doubt that he was of Zulu blood, but I could get no traces of his
family. He must come of high stock, for he is a fine figure of a man.
'Very soon I found it was no good following him in his excursions into
civilization. There he was merely the educated Kaffir; a great pet of
missionary societies, and a favourite speaker at Church meetings. You
will find evidence given by him in Blue-Books on native affairs, and he
counted many members of Parliament at home among his correspondents. I
let that side go, and resolved to dog him when on his evangelizing
tours in the back-veld.

'For six months I stuck to him like a leech. I am pretty good at
disguises, and he never knew who was the broken-down old Kaffir who
squatted in the dirt at the edge of the crowd when he spoke, or the
half-caste who called him "Sir" and drove his Cape-cart. I had some
queer adventures, but these can wait. The gist of the thing is, that
after six months which turned my hair grey I got a glimmering of what
he was after. He talked Christianity to the mobs in the kraals, but to
the indunas[3] he told a different story.'

Captain Arcoll helped himself to a drink. 'You can guess what that
story was, Mr Crawfurd. At full moon when the black cock was blooded,
the Reverend John forgot his Christianity. He was back four centuries
among the Mazimba sweeping down on the Zambesi. He told them, and they
believed him, that he was the Umkulunkulu, the incarnated spirit of
Prester John. He told them that he was there to lead the African race
to conquest and empire. Ay, and he told them more: for he has, or says
he has, the Great Snake itself, the necklet of Prester John.'

Neither of us spoke; we were too occupied with fitting this news into
our chain of knowledge.

Captain Arcoll went on. 'Now that I knew his purpose, I set myself to
find out his prep