that day he rested in the cave, while Galazi
went out to hunt. In the evening he returned, bearing a buck upon his
shoulders, and they skinned the buck and ate of it as they sat by the
fire. And when the sun was down Galazi took up his tale.

"Now Umslopogaas, son of Mopo, hear! I had passed the forest, and had
come, as it were, to the legs of the old stone Witch who sits up aloft
there forever waiting for the world to die. Here the sun shone merrily,
here lizards ran and birds flew to and fro, and though it grew towards
the evening--for I had wandered long in the forest--I was afraid no
more. So I climbed up the steep rock, where little bushes grow like
hair on the arms of a man, till at last I came to the knees of the stone
Witch, which are the space before the cave. I lifted by head over the
brink of the rock and looked, and I tell you, Umslopogaas, my blood ran
cold and my heart turned to water, for there, before the cave, rolled
wolves, many and great. Some slept and growled in their sleep, some
gnawed at the skulls of dead game, some sat up like dogs and their
tongues hung from their grinning jaws. I looked, I saw, and beyond I
discovered the mouth of the cave, where the bones of the boy should be.
But I had no wish to come there, being afraid of the wolves, for now
I knew that these were the ghosts who live upon the mountain. So I
bethought me that I would fly, and turned to go. And, Umslopogaas, even
as I turned, the great club Watcher of the Fords swung round and smote
me on the back with such a blow as a man smites upon a coward. Now
whether this was by chance or whether the Watcher would shame him who
bore it, say you, for I do not know. At the least, shame entered into
me. Should I go back to be mocked by the people of the kraal and by the
old woman? And if I wished to go, should I not be killed by the ghosts
at night in the forest? Nay, it was better to die in the jaws of the
wolves, and at once.

"Thus I thought in my heart; then, tarrying not, lest fear should come
upon me again, I swung up the Watcher, and crying aloud the war-cry of
the Halakazi, I sprang over the brink of the rock and rushed upon the
wolves. They, too, sprang up and stood howling, with bristling hides and
fiery eyes, and the smell of them came into my nostrils. Yet when they
saw it was a man that rushed upon them, they were seized with sudden
fear and fled this way and that, leaping by great bounds from the place
of rock, which is th