n short, a successful manufacturer who had made his
pile and could afford to retire. And yet--and yet--the hard English
money flowed into the country, and it represented everything that should
render a man's declining years comfortable and pleasant; and further,
Malemba loved his craft, and took an artist's pride in it; wherefore
even his prosperity left something further to wish for.

Then sporadic rumours began to creep about, and the atmosphere became
charged. In the midst of which Malemba was sent for by a powerful
chief, and offered such tempting inducements that he decided to open his
forge again. And that chief was Sapazani.

For Sapazani had wielded weapons of Malemba's manufacture with his own
hand, had wielded them to considerable purpose, too. He desired nothing
so much as to wield them again.

Sapazani, the ultra-conservative, had no use for assegais fabricated
across the seas. He knew the balance and the temper of the home-made
article to a nicety, especially that made by Mklemba. Wherefore he sent
his invitation to the latter, and lo! under the noses of the civil
officials and the half-dozen police who represented or carried out law
and order in the district, Malemba's forge was set up, and turned out
its score of assegais _per diem_. But the Lumisana district was a very
wide, wild and, in parts, inaccessible tract, and in one of its most
remote and inaccessible ranges was Malemba's forge set up.

"Ah, my sons," said the old man, as he paused in his work to take snuff,
while his assistants were arranging their primitive bellows. "Ah, my
sons, I fear me that what I do is useless. What are these poor weapons
beside the thunder and lightning wherewith the Amangisi and the Amabuna
poured death upon each other from distances further than a man can see?
How then will ye get near enough to use these?"

"But, my father," answered one of the spectators, "what if the _izanusi_
put _muti_ upon us which render the white man's bullets of no avail?"

The old man chuckled, and his face crinkled up.

"Will the _izanusi_ doctor themselves and then stand up and let
themselves be shot at?" he answered. "Will they do this? _Ou_!"

This was a puzzler. His hearers were pretty sure they would do no such
thing, yet so ingrained is this stale and flimsy superstition, that
notwithstanding the numbers of times its utter fallacy had been proved,
there is no getting it out of the native system.

"I made blades for