Baleka.
My hut, I thought, would be empty, for nobody sleeps there except
myself, and the huts of Noma were some paces away to the right. I came
to the reed fence that surrounded the huts. Nobody was to be seen at the
gate, which was not shut with thorns as usual. It was my duty to close
it, and I had not been there to do so. Then, bidding the dog lie down
outside, I stepped through boldly, reached the door of my hut, and
listened. It was empty; there was not even a breath to be heard. So I
crept in and began to search for my assegais, my water-gourd, and my
wood pillow, which was so nicely carved that I did not like to leave it.
Soon I found them. Then I felt about for my skin rug, and as I did so my
hand touched something cold. I started, and felt again. It was a man's
face--the face of a dead man, of Noma, whom I had killed and who had
been laid in my hut to await burial. Oh! then I was frightened, for Noma
dead and in the dark was worse than Noma alive. I made ready to fly,
when suddenly I heard the voices of women talking outside the door of
the hut. I knew the voices; they were those of Noma's two wives, and one
of them said she was coming in to watch by her husband's body. Now I was
in a trap indeed, for before I could do anything I saw the light go out
of a hole in the hut, and knew by the sound of a fat woman puffing
as she bent herself up that Noma's first wife was coming through it.
Presently she was in, and, squatting by the side of the corpse in such a
fashion that I could not get to the door, she began to make lamentations
and to call down curses on me. Ah! she did not know that I was
listening. I too squatted by Noma's head, and grew quick-witted in my
fear. Now that the woman was there I was not so much afraid of the dead
man, and I remembered, too, that he had been a great cheat; so I thought
I would make him cheat for the last time. I placed my hands beneath his
shoulders and pushed him up so that he sat upon the ground. The woman
heard the noise and made a sound in her throat.

"Will you not be quiet, you old hag?" I said in Noma's voice. "Can you
not let me be at peace, even now when I am dead?"

She heard, and, falling backwards in fear, drew in her breath to shriek
aloud.

"What! will you also dare to shriek?" I said again in Noma's voice;
"then I must teach you silence." And I tumbled him over on to the top of
her.

Then her senses left her, and whether she ever found them again I do not
know