cines.

She contemplated me gravely and I contemplated her, waiting till
she should choose to speak. At length, having examined me inch
by inch, she saluted by raising her rounded arm and tapering
hand, and remarked in a soft, full voice--

"All is as the picture told. I perceive before me the lord
Macumazahn."

I thought this a strange saying, seeing that I could not
recollect having given my photograph to any one in Zululand.

"You need no magic to tell you that, doctoress," I remarked, "but
where did you see my picture?"

"In the dust far away," she replied.

"And who showed it to you?"

"One who knew you, O Macumazahn, in the years before I came out
of the Darkness, one named Opener of Roads, and with him another
who also knew you in those years, one who has gone down to the
Darkness."

Now for some occult reason I shrank from asking the name of this
"one who had gone down to the Darkness," although I was sure that
she was waiting for the question. So I merely remarked, without
showing surprise--

"So Zikali still lives, does he? He should have been dead long
ago."

"You know well that he lives, Macumazahn, for how could he die
till his work was accomplished? Moreover, you will remember that
he spoke to you when last moon was but just past her full--in a
dream, Macumazahn. I brought that dream, although you did not
see me."

"Pish!" I exclaimed. "Have done with your talk of dreams. Who
thinks anything of dreams?"

"You do," she replied even more placidly than before, "you whom
that dream has brought hither--with others."

"You lie," I said rudely. "The Basutos brought me here."

"The Watcher-by-Night is pleased to say that I lie, so doubtless
I do lie," she answered, her fixed smile deepening a little.
Then she folded her arms across her breast and remained silent.

"You are a messenger, O seer of pictures in the dust and bearer
of the cup of dreams," I said with sarcasm. "Who sends a message
by your lips for me, and what are the words of the message?"

"My Lords the Spirits spoke the message by the mouth of the
master Zikali. He sends it on to you by the lips of your
servant, the doctoress Nombe."

"Are you indeed a doctoress, being so young?" I asked, for
somehow I wished to postpone the hearing of that message.

"O Macumazahn, I have heard the call, I have felt the pain in my
back, I have drunk of the black medicine and of the white
medicine, yes, for a whole year. I have bee