lap of the woman. Below this
place the rock sloped sharply, and was clothed with little bushes. Lower
down yet was a forest, great and dense, that stretched to the top of a
cliff, and at the foot of the cliff, beyond the waters of the river, lay
the wide plains of Zululand.

"Yonder, stranger," said Galazi, pointing with the club Watcher of the
Fords far away to the plain beneath; "yonder is the kraal where the aged
woman dwelt. There is a cliff rising from the plain, up which I must
climb; there is the forest where dwell the Amatongo, the people of the
ghosts; there, on the hither side of the forest, runs the path to the
cave, and here is the cave itself. See this stone lying at the mouth of
the cave, it turns thus, shutting up the entrance hole--it turns gently;
though it is so large, a child may move it, for it rests upon a sharp
point of rock. Only mark this, the stone must be pushed too far; for,
look! if it came to here," and he pointed to a mark in the mouth of the
cave, "then that man need be strong who can draw it back again, though I
have done it myself, who am not a man full grown. But if it pass beyond
this mark, then, see, it will roll down the neck of the cave like a
pebble down the neck of a gourd, and I think that two men, one striving
from within and one dragging from without, scarcely could avail to
push it clear. Look now, I close the stone, as is my custom of a night,
so,"--and he grasped the rock and swung it round upon its pivot, on
which it turned as a door turns. "Thus I leave it, and though, except
those to whom the secret is know, none would guess that a cave was here,
yet it can be rolled back again with a push of the hand. But enough of
the stone. Enter again, wanderer, and I will go forward with my tale,
for it is long and strange.

"I started from the kraal of the old woman, and the people of the kraal
followed me to the brink of the river. It was in flood, and few had
dared to cross it.

"'Ha! ha!' they cried, 'now your journey is done, little man; watch by
the ford you who would win the Watcher of the Ford! Beat the water with
the club, perhaps so it shall grow gentle that your feet may pass it!'

"I answered nothing to their mocking, only I bound the shield upon my
shoulders with a string, and the bag that I had brought I made fast
about my middle, and I held the great club in my teeth by the thong.
Then I plunged into the river and swam. Twice, stranger, the current
bore me under, a