ion
with the skull--whose was it, and where had the witch-doctor obtained
it? The other was the absence of Xolilizwe--where was he, and what
excuse would he give for not being present when the great son of the
Chief took the Shwama?

"We drank beer, and danced, and made merry all the forenoon. I saw a
man near me who must have passed Kwababana's kraal in coming to the
feast, and I asked him if he had seen anything of Xolilizwe. He told me
he had heard that Xolilizwe was away following the spoor of old
Kwababana's only milking cow, which had been stolen three days
previously, and had not returned.

"Just after the sun had begun to fall, I saw my daughter Nomalie
approaching. She walked in amongst the people and straight up to me
without saying a word. I shall never forget her face--it was like the
face of one that had been dead for several days--all except the eyes,
which were full of fire. I knew at once that Xolilizwe was dead.

"She took my hand and silently drew me after her, and thus we walked
down the footpath to the drift on the other side of the Ghoda, which
you meant to have passed to-night. We crossed the stream, and she led
me to the edge of the bush and pointed to something lying just inside
the outer fringe of brushwood. I looked, and saw the headless body of
Xolilizwe.

"I recognised the body at once. No other man that I knew hart such
limbs as he. My unhappy daughter's husband had been slain by the thrust
of a spear from behind through the left shoulder-blade. I tried to
comfort Nomalie, and to get her to speak, but not a word passed her
lips. After a while, she motioned me impatiently to leave her, so I
went away, meaning to return later. I noticed a digging pick, and a
stone nearly as large as my head, with a string of twisted bark tied
around it, lying close to the body. I knew now in whose skull the
first-fruits had been mixed.

"It was still early in the afternoon, so I went home. The day was hot,
and I had drunk much beer, so I lay down and slept. I woke just at
sundown, and went quickly down to the Ghoda, expecting to find my
daughter there. But she was not to be found, neither was the body where
I had seen it lying. Just afterwards, however, I found a heap of stones
that appeared to have been just before piled over a mound of freshly
turned earth. The pick was stuck into the soft ground next to it, so I
inferred that Nomalie had buried the body of her husband and gone home.

"I went up to K