being consumed to one of the hide bags that contained his
medicines. The assembly began to break up amidst a babel of excited
talk.

Tabitha looked round for her goat, and perceiving it at a little
distance, ran to fetch it, since the creature, being engaged in eating
something to its taste, would not come at her call. She seized it by the
neck to drag it away, with the result that its fore-feet, obstinately
set upon the wall, overturned a large stone, revealing a great puff
adder that was sleeping there.

The reptile thus disturbed instantly struck backwards after the fashion
of its species, so that its fangs, just missing Tabitha's hands,
sank deep into the kid's neck. She screamed and there was a great
disturbance. A native ran forward and pinned down the puff-adder with
his walking-stick of which the top was forked. The kid immediately fell
on to its side, and lay there bleeding and bleating. Tabitha began to
weep, calling out, "My goat is killed," between her sobs.

Menzi, distinguishing her voice amid the tumult, asked what was the
matter. Someone told him, whereon he commanded that the kid should be
brought to him and the snake also. This was done, Tabitha following her
dying pet with her mother, for by now Thomas had departed, taking no
heed of these events, which perhaps he was too disturbed to notice.

"Save my goat! Save my goat, O Menzi!" implored Tabitha.

The old witch-doctor looked at the animal, also at the hideous
puff-adder that had been dragged along the ground in the fork of the
stick.

"It will be hard, Little Flower," he said, "seeing that the goat is
bitten in the neck and this snake is very poisonous. Still for your
sake I will try, although I fear that it may prove but a waste of good
medicine."

Then he took one of his bags and from it selected a certain packet
wrapped in a dried leaf, out of which he shook some grey powder. Seizing
the kid, which seemed to be almost dead, he made an incision in its
throat over the wound, and into it rubbed some of this powder. Next he
spat upon more of the powder, thus turning it into a paste, and opening
the kid's mouth, thrust it down its throat, at the same time muttering
an invocation or spell.

"Now we must wait," he said, letting the kid fall upon the ground, where
it lay to all appearance dead.

"Is that powder any good?" asked Dorcas rather aimlessly.

"Yes, it is very good, Lady; a medicine of power of which I alone
have the secret, a mag