hree times, and upon the third occasion I
detected that for an instant the fixed, glassy stare of his eyes gave
place to a lightning-like glance of triumphant malignity; and then I
knew that his entire pose was merely a piece of exceedingly clever
acting, and that he was no more in a trance than I was. When he had
completed the fourth half-circle he halted, at a distance of about ten
yards from where I was sitting, and, with his back turned toward me,
proceeded to sniff the air still more strongly.

"Yes," he presently exclaimed in a voice quite loud enough for the king
and me to hear, "I am not deceived, I smell him; though his skin is
white his heart is black, and I smell the evil thoughts against the
Great, Great One that lurk deep down in it!" And a smile of diabolical
malice overspread his evil face as he shook his great spear aloft and
began to dance very slowly, singing softly to himself.

So that was it--the villain was actually going to smell me out!
But--"Not if I know it," thought I; and starting to my feet as I drew a
pistol from my belt and levelled it at him, I cried:

"Halt there, Machenga! Halt, I say, or thou diest! Deceiver and
murderer, destroyer of the king's most faithful friends, and giver of
evil counsel to the Great, Great One, my magic tells me that in that
evil heart of thine thou hast conceived the design to slay me, because
when thou didst come secretly to my wagon last night I refused to give
thee one of my magic fire tubes. Now I will prove thee, rascal; I will
show the king that thou, his chief witch doctor forsooth, art nothing
but a base pretender, a player upon his credulity. Thou dost claim to
be a great and powerful magician; well, so am I. Kill me, if thou
canst; and it shall be that he of us two who kills the other shall be
the more powerful magician, and shall also be the one whose mouth speaks
the truth."

Meanwhile, during this interlude, brief as it was, five new victims--two
of them indunas--had been smelled out and brought forward; but the king,
intent only upon what was passing between Machenga and myself, had
forborne to give the fatal signal to the Slayers, and thus the little
group of victims and executioners stood motionless in the centre of the
arena, while every eye was turned upon the chief witch doctor and
myself.

Machenga had obeyed my imperative command to halt, thus unconsciously
demonstrating at once that his state of trance was merely a pretence;
an