waist, and to my horror drew from it the withered hand of a child, which
evidently had been carefully dried in the smoke.

"'I fly for this cause,' she answered, holding the poor little hand
towards me. 'See now, I bore a child. Wambe was its father, and for
eighteen months the child lived and I loved it. But Wambe loves not his
children; he kills them all. He fears lest they should grow up to slay
one so wicked, and he would have killed this child also, but I begged
its life. One day, some soldiers passing the hut saw the child and
saluted him, calling him the "chief who soon shall be." Wambe heard,
and was mad. He smote the babe, and it wept. Then he said that it should
weep for good cause. Among the things that he had stolen from the white
men whom he slew is a trap that will hold lions. So strong is the trap
that four men must stand on it, two on either side, before it can be
opened.'"

Here old Quatermain broke off suddenly.

"Look here, you fellows," he said, "I can't bear to go on with this part
of the story, because I never could stand either seeing or talking of
the sufferings of children. You can guess what that devil did, and what
the poor mother was forced to witness. Would you believe it, she told
me the tale without a tremor, in the most matter-of-fact way. Only I
noticed that her eyelid quivered all the time.

"'Well,' I said, as unconcernedly as though I had been talking of the
death of a lamb, though inwardly I was sick with horror and boiling
with rage, 'and what do you mean to do about the matter, Maiwa, wife of
Wambe?'

"'I mean to do this, white man,' she answered, drawing herself up to her
full height, and speaking in tones as hard as steel and cold as ice--'I
mean to work, and work, and work, to bring this to pass, and to bring
that to pass, until at length it comes to pass that with these living
eyes I behold Wambe dying the death that he gave to his child and my
child.'

"'Well said,' I answered.

"'Ay, well said, Macumazahn, well said, and not easily forgotten. Who
could forget, oh, who could forget? See where this dead hand rests
against my side; so once it rested when alive. And now, though it is
dead, now every night it creeps from its nest and strokes my hair and
clasps my fingers in its tiny palm. Every night it does this, fearing
lest I should forget. Oh, my child! my child! ten days ago I held thee
to my breast, and now this alone remains of thee,' and she kissed the
dead hand