not all humbug by any means, indeed I have known a good few
white men--hard bitten, up-country going men with no nonsense or
superstition about them--who never fail to treat a genuine native witch
doctor with very real consideration indeed.

"Greeting, father of mystery," I answered, with some vague idea that the
meeting all so unexpected and somewhat weird, might yet be not without
its bearings on the fate of Hensley. "You are bent upon _muti_ indeed,
when the world is half through its dark time and the moon is low."

"M-m!" he hummed. "The moon is low. Just so, Iqalaqala. You will not
go home to-night."

"Not go home!" I echoed, meaning to humour him, and yet, in my
innermost self, conscious that there was a very real note of curiosity
that could only come of whole, or partial, belief in the question. "And
why should I not go home to-night?"

He shrugged his shoulders impressively. Then he said:

"Who may tell? But--you will not."

I tried to laugh good-humouredly, but it was not genuine. Yet was not
the thing absurd? Here was I, letting myself be humbugged--almost
scared--by an old charlatan of a witch doctor, a fellow who made a
comfortable living out of his credulous countrymen by fooling them with
charms and spells and omens, and all sorts of similar quackery--I, a
white man, with--I haven't mentioned it before--an English public school
education.

"Here, my father," I said, producing a goodly twist of roll tobacco.
"This is good--always good--whether by a comfortable fire, or searching
for _muti_ materials under the moon."

He received it, in the hollow of both hands, as the native way is. I
saw before me in the moonlight what was not at all the popular
conception of the witch doctor--a little shrivelled being with furtive,
cunning looks, and snaky eyes. No. This was a middle-aged man of fine
stature, and broadly and strongly built: destitute too of charms or
amulets in the way of adornments. His head-ring glistened in the
moonlight, and for all clothing he wore the usual _mutya_. In fact the
only peculiarity about him was that he had but one eye.

"What has become of Nyamaki?" I said, filling and lighting my pipe.

"U' Nyamaki? Has he gone then?" was the answer which, of course, was a
bit of assumed ignorance.

"Now how can the father of wisdom ask such a question?" I said. "He--
to whom nothing is dark!"

Ukozi's face was as a mask. He uttered a single grunt--that was all.