he said, holding up the white pebble so that the
light from the fire shone on it--since, save for the lingering red
glow, it was now growing dark--"into this stone I am about to draw
your spirit, O Macumazana; and into this one"--and he held up the black
pebble--"yours, O Son of Matiwane. Why do you look frightened, O brave
White Man, who keep saying in your heart, 'He is nothing but an ugly
old Kafir cheat'? If I am a cheat, why do you look frightened? Is your
spirit already in your throat, and does it choke you, as this little
stone might do if you tried to swallow it?" and he burst into one of his
great, uncanny laughs.

I tried to protest that I was not in the least frightened, but failed,
for, in fact, I suppose my nerves were acted on by his suggestion, and
I did feel exactly as though that stone were in my throat, only coming
upwards, not going downwards. "Hysteria," thought I to myself, "the
result of being overtired," and as I could not speak, sat still as
though I treated his gibes with silent contempt.

"Now," went on the dwarf, "perhaps I shall seem to die; and if so do not
touch me lest you should really die. Wait till I wake up again and tell
you what your spirits have told me. Or if I do not wake up--for a time
must come when I shall go on sleeping--well--for as long as I have
lived--after the fires are quite out, not before, lay your hands upon
my breast; and if you find me turning cold, get you gone to some other
Nyanga as fast as the spirits of this place will let you, O ye who would
peep into the future."

As he spoke he threw a big handful of the roots that I have mentioned
on to each of the fires, whereon tall flames leapt up from them, very
unholy-looking flames which were followed by columns of dense, white
smoke that emitted a most powerful and choking odour quite unlike
anything that I had ever smelt before. It seemed to penetrate all
through me, and that accursed stone in my throat grew as large as an
apple and felt as though someone were poking it upwards with a stick.

Next he threw the white pebble into the right-hand fire, that which was
opposite to me, saying:

"Enter, Macumazahn, and look," and the black pebble he threw into the
left-hand fire saying: "Enter, Son of Matiwane, and look. Then come back
both of you and make report to me, your master."

Now it is a fact that as he said these words I experienced a sensation
as though a stone had come out of my throat; so readily do our