t lent him the charm, for then the King's
men would have made an end of him, who knows too much and like some
silly boaster, may shout out the truth when his axe is aloft and he is
full of the beer of battle. For in battle he will live and in battle he
will die, Macumazahn, as perhaps you may see one day."

[*] For the tale of this meeting see the book called "Allan
Quatermain."--Editor.

"The fate of your friends does not trouble you over much,
Opener-of-Roads," I said with sarcasm.

"Not at all, Macumazahn, because I have none. The only friends of the
old are those whom they can turn to their own ends, and if these fail
them they find others."

"I understand, Zikali, and know now what to expect from you."

He laughed in his strange way and answered,

"Aye, and it is good that you must expect, good in the future as in the
past, for _you_, Macumazahn, who are brave in your own fashion, without
being a fool like Umslopogaas, and, although you know it not, like some
master-smith, forge my assegais out of the red ore I give you, tempering
them in the blood of men, and yet keep your mind innocent and your hands
clean. Friends like you are useful to such as I, Macumazahn, and must be
well paid in those wares that please them."

The old wizard brooded for a space, while I reflected upon his amazing
cynicism, which interested me in a way, for the extreme of unmorality is
as fascinating to study as the extreme of virtue and often more so. Then
jerking up his great head, he asked suddenly,

"What message had the White Queen for me?"

"She said that you troubled her too much at night in dreams, Zikali."

"Aye, but if I cease to do so, ever she desires to know the reason why,
for I hear her asking me in the voices of the wind, or in the twittering
of bats. After all, she is a woman, Macumazahn, and it must be dull
sitting alone from year to year with naught to stay her appetite save
the ashes of the past and dreams of the future, so dull that I wonder,
having once meshed you in her web, how she found the heart to let you
go before she had sucked out your life and spirit. I suppose that having
made a mock of you and drained you dry, she was content to throw you
aside like an empty gourd. Perchance, had she kept you at her side,
you would have been a stone in her path in days to come. Perchance,
Macumazahn, she waits for other travellers and would welcome them, or
one of them alone, saying nothing of a certain W