ngeza, had certainly never witnessed our meetings,
and he talked with nobody. The girls who had surprised us that day had,
I knew, let fall no word.

"`I am sore at heart indeed, father,' I answered.

"`My greatest desire seems impossible of accomplishment. Yet once you
declared I should obtain it.'

"`If you obtain it, son of Ntelani, it will be at the cost of passing
through such unknown terrors as will turn your heart to water, of doing
such deeds of peril and daring as no man surely ever did before. At
this and at no other cost. Are you prepared to earn it at such a
price?'

"`_Hau_! I fear nothing. I am a warrior of the Amazulu,' I answered
boastfully.

"Masuka eyed me strangely.

"`Of _muti_ were we speaking just now, warrior of the Amazulu who knows
not fear,' he said. `Now see. Are you sufficiently devoid of fear to
dare to look into the future?'

"Then, _Nkose_, I felt that I had spoken like a liar and a braggart.
Even the burning of the old magician's spider-like eyes in the
half-gloom of the hut caused me to quail. What would it be when I
should follow him into the dark mysteries as yet unveiled? But it was
not in me to eat up my word.

"`I dare all things, father,' I replied.

"Again he bent upon me that strange look, and, going over to the other
side of the hut, began to uncover something, which looked like an
earthen bowl. Over this he sat for some time, keeping up the while that
strange humming incantation with which he had accompanied the
witch-finding. In the utmost tension of excitement, my eyes well-nigh
starting from my head, I sat and watched him.

"`Draw near, son of Ntelani,' he said at last.

"I approached, and peered cautiously over his shoulder, for he had been
seated with his back towards me. The thing before him was a bowl, even
as I had thought--a large bowl made of baked clay such as we use for
beer. In it was a strange, liquid which shone and shimmered in the
half-darkness of the hut. As I looked into this something moved, and
then I cried out in amazement, for it was as if a man were looking
through the circle of his hands into a strange world beyond. There were
towering cliffs and rugged, stone-strewn slopes, and up these slopes
surged a dense swarm of dark beings like ants. Ha! they were men! Then
it seemed that rolling clouds of dust went up, that the mountain seemed
to crack and split, and all fell into space. My tongue was tied with
wonder and awe.