he will die rather than break his word. That's all, Mr. Somers, and
I dare say you will think--quite enough, too."

"I understand," replied Stephen. "Tell the chief, Mavovo" (I observed he
laid an emphasis on the word, _chief_) "that I _quite_ understand, and
that I thank him very much for explaining things to me so fully. Then
ask him whether, as the matter is so important, there is no way out of
this trouble?"

Sammy translated into Zulu, which he spoke perfectly, as I noted without
interpolations or additions.

"Only one way," answered Mavovo in the intervals of taking snuff. "It is
that Macumazana himself shall ask me to do this thing, Macumazana is my
old chief and friend, and for his sake I will forget what in the case
of others I should always remember. If he will come and ask me, without
mockery, to exercise my skill on behalf of all of us, I will try to
exercise it, although I know very well that he believes it to be but as
an idle little whirlwind that stirs the dust, that raises the dust and
lets it fall again without purpose or meaning, forgetting, as the wise
white men forget, that even the wind which blows the dust is the same
that breathes in our nostrils, and that to it, we also are as is the
dust."

Now I, the listener, thought for a moment or two. The words of this
fighting savage, Mavovo, even those of them of which I had heard only
the translation, garbled and beslavered by the mean comments of the
unutterable Sammy, stirred my imagination. Who was I that I should dare
to judge of him and his wild, unknown gifts? Who was I that I should
mock at him and by my mockery intimate that I believed him to be a
fraud?

Stepping through the gateway of the fence, I confronted him.

"Mavovo," I said, "I have overheard your talk. I am sorry if I laughed
at you in Durban. I do not understand what you call your magic. It is
beyond me and may be true or may be false. Still, I shall be grateful to
you if you will use your power to discover, if you can, whether Dogeetah
is coming here, and if so, when. Now, do as it may please you; I have
spoken."

"And I have heard, Macumazana, my father. To-night I will call upon my
Snake. Whether it will answer or what it will answer, I cannot say."

Well, he did call upon his Snake with due and portentous ceremony and,
according to Stephen, who was present, which I declined to be, that
mystic reptile declared that Dogeetah, alias Brother John, would arrive
in Beza Town