gates were open, and sought out
a certain deep glen which had an evil name, for it was said that spirits
haunted it and put those to death who entered there. Whether this was
true I do not know, but I know that in the glen dwelt a certain woman
of the woods, who had her habitation in a cave and lived upon what she
could kill or steal or dig up with her hands. Now this woman was
mad. For it had chanced that her husband had been "smelt out" by the
witch-doctors as a worker of magic against the king, and slain. Then
Chaka, according to custom, despatched the slayers to eat up his kraal,
and they came to the kraal and killed his people. Last of all they
killed his children, three young girls, and would have assegaied their
mother, when suddenly a spirit entered into her at the sight, and she
went mad, so that they let her go, being afraid to touch her afterwards.
So she fled and took up her abode in the haunted glen; and this was
the nature of her madness, that whenever she saw children, and more
especially girl children, a longing came upon her to kill them as her
own had been killed. This, indeed, she did often, for when the moon
was full and her madness at its highest, she would travel far to find
children, snatching them away from the kraals like a hyena. Still,
none would touch her because of the spirit in her, not even those whose
children she had murdered.

So Umslopogaas and Nada came to the glen where the child-slayer lived,
and sat down by a pool of water not far from the mouth of her cave,
weaving flowers into a garland. Presently Umslopogaas left Nada, to
search for rock lilies which she loved. As he went he called back to
her, and his voice awoke the woman who was sleeping in her cave, for
she came out by night only, like a jackal. Then the woman stepped forth,
smelling blood and having a spear in her hand. Presently she saw Nada
seated upon the grass weaving flowers, and crept towards her to kill
her. Now as she came--so the child told me--suddenly a cold wind seemed
to breathe upon Nada, and fear took hold of her, though she did not see
the woman who would murder her. She let fall the flowers, and looked
before her into the pool, and there, mirrored in the pool, she saw the
greedy face of the child-slayer, who crept down upon her from above,
her hair hanging about her brow and her eyes shining like the eyes of a
lion.

Then with a cry Nada sprang up and fled along the path which Umslopogaas
had taken, and a