r he might wish to say to the witch doctor.

It was about a quarter of an hour later that, as Dick and his henchman
approached the witch doctor's hut, Ingona emerged from it with the
gratifying intimation that he had succeeded in inducing Sekosini
graciously to accord the white man an audience. Whereupon the white
man, having suitably expressed the satisfaction which was his at so
great an honour, stooped and passed into the hut, preceded by Ingona and
followed by Mafuta, whose original wholesome fear of wizards had by this
time become completely swamped by his belief in the power of his master
to circumvent the most powerful wizard that ever lived.

The hut of Sekosini afforded no indication of the importance of its
owner, for it was of the same size as, and in all other respects similar
to, the other huts of the ordinary natives, that is, as regarded its
external appearance. Inside, however, there was a very marked
difference; for whereas the ordinary native is content to sleep on the
bare floor, Sekosini was satisfied with nothing less than a bed,
consisting of a quadrangular framework of hardwood supported, at the
height of a foot above the floor, by four stout posts driven firmly into
the ground, the skeleton framework being strapped across and lengthways
by a great number of tightly strained raw-hide thongs upon which were
piled several very valuable karosses, or skin rugs. Also the interior
of the hut was thickly hung with bunches of dried herbs and other
objects, the precise nature of which Dick was at first unable to
determine in the comparative obscurity of the interior, passing at once,
as he did, from the blazing sunshine of the open direct into an interior
which was unilluminated save by such light as penetrated through the
low, narrow entrance.

For a full minute he stood, mute and motionless, waiting for his eyes to
accustom themselves to the change; then the various objects of the
interior gradually began to reveal themselves to him with increasing
distinctness, and he found himself face to face with a thin, wizened,
shrunken creature of apparently incredible age, without a particle of
hair on head or face, but with a pair of eyes that glowed like
carbuncles within their cavernous sockets. He was seated cross-legged
upon the floor, was absolutely naked, save for a necklace of snake skin,
and was toying with an enormous green _mamba_--one of the most deadly of
South African snakes--that lay coiled b