ph, Jan himself, me his wife, and Sihamba. I
asked him what they were doing, but he could give me no clear answer, so
I suppose that they were printed there like the heads on postage stamps,
if indeed they existed anywhere except in Jan's brain, into which
Sihamba had conjured them.

"What do you see more?" asked Sihamba.

"I see a shadow in the water," he answered, "a dark shadow, and--it is
like the head of Swart Piet cut out of black paper--it spreads till it
almost hides all the faces on the bits of glass. Almost, I say, but
not quite, for things are passing beneath the shadow which I cannot
distinguish. Now it shrinks quite small, and lies only over your
likeness, Sihamba, which shows through it red--yes, and all the water
round it is red, and now there is nothing left;" and Jan rose pale
with fright, and wiped his brow with a coloured pocket-handkerchief,
muttering "Allemachter! this is magic indeed."

"Let me look," I said, and I looked for a long while and saw nothing
except the five bits of glass. So I told Jan outright that he was a fool
whom any conjurer could play with, but he waited until I had done and
then asked Sihamba what the vision meant.

"Father of Swallow," she answered, "what I saw in the water mirror you
have seen, only I saw more than you did because my sight is keener. You
ask me what it means, but I cannot tell you altogether, for such visions
are uncertain; they sum up the future but they do not show it all. This,
however, is sure, that trouble waits us every one because of Swart Piet,
for his shadow lay thick upon the image of each of us; only note
this, that while it cleared away from the rest, it remained upon mine,
staining it blood-red, which means that while in the end you will escape
him, I shall die at his hands, or through him. Well, so be it, but
meanwhile this is my counsel--because of other things that I saw in the
water which I cannot describe, for in truth I know not rightly what they
were--that the marriage of the Swallow and her husband should be put
off, and that when they are married it should be at the dorp yonder, not
here."

Now when I heard this my anger overflowed like water in a boiling pot.
"What!" I cried, "when all is settled and the _predicant_ has ridden for
two days to do the thing, is the marriage to be put off because forsooth
this little black idiot declares that she sees things on bits of glass
in a bowl, and because you, Jan, who ought to know better, t