looking Makalaka, very black, and
with a nose almost aquiline, giving a predatory and hawklike aspect to
his forbidding countenance. His status in the hierarchy of the
Abstraction was hardly second to that of Qubani, indeed there were those
who reckoned his gifts the greater.

The group was seated in the open--a huge, riven granite pillar towering
up behind them. Above, around, everywhere, vast granite blocks were
piled, shutting in the place on all sides. It had been raining heavily
for several hours, though by now it was sullenly clearing, and on the
wet earth, stamped flat and muddy by hundreds of feet, fires were
springing up in the dusk, and the hum of many voices rose and fell upon
the damp heavy air.

Hundreds were collected here; all fighting men, no women and dogs.
Weapons of war lay behind each group, just as they had been put down:
shields, assegais, guns of all sorts and sizes, axes, knob-sticks. It
was evident that this was an important stronghold and rallying point for
the Matabele impis in the field.

"Zwabeka will bring destruction upon us, brothers," went on Gingamanzi.
"He it is that spared this Makiwa. He laughs at Umlimo."

"Perhaps he is but keeping him as a sacrifice to Umlimo," said another.
"A man half dead already would make a poor sacrifice."

"Zwabeka is chief here now," went on Gingamanzi meaningly. "By the time
the sun has risen twice, he will not be. We will go and look at this
Makiwa, and see how soon he will be ready for Umlimo. Zwabeka will not
give him to us now, but when he is dead, he will be glad to."

"_Au_!" grunted another, "I am but a child beside the chief of the
Abantwana Mlimo. Still I would ask--Of what use is one who is already
dead, as a sacrifice to Umlimo?"

Gingamanzi put his head on one side.

"Thou art but a child! Ah! ah! that is true, Kekelwa. For the man will
not really be dead but will only seem to be. If I can but touch him
with this; one touch, even one little touch that he will hardly feel;
why then he will be as one dead to the beholders, and yet he will know
all that goes on. He will even be able to feel."

"Then he will move," was an objection raised. "How then will they think
him dead?"

"He will not move. The _muti_ here is such that he will not move,
although he will know and feel." And the black little demon
contemplated lovingly a sort of lancet that he had drawn from a wooden
sheath. The keen point was encrusted with somethi