Now, it will be observed that there was nothing very remarkable in this conversation between Zikali and myself.  He did not tell me any deep secrets or make any great prophecy.  It may be wondered, indeed, when there is so much to record, why I set it down at all.

My answer is, because of the extraordinary impression that it produced upon me.  Although so little was said, I felt all the while that those few words were a veil hiding terrible events to be.  I was sure that some dreadful scheme had been hatched between the old dwarf and Mameena whereof the issue would soon become apparent, and that he had sent me away in a hurry after he learned that she had told me nothing, because he feared lest I should stumble on its cue and perhaps cause it to fail.

At any rate, as I walked back to my wagons by moonlight down that dreadful gorge, the hot, thick air seemed to me to have a physical taste and smell of blood, and the dank foliage of the tropical trees that grew there, when now and again a puff of wind stirred them, moaned like the fabled imikovu, or as men might do in their last faint agony.  The effect upon my nerves was quite strange, for when at last I reached my wagons I was shaking like a reed, and a cold perspiration, unnatural enough upon that hot night, poured from my face and body.

Well, I took a couple of stiff tots of “squareface” to pull myself together, and at length went to sleep, to awake before dawn with a headache.  Looking out of the wagon, to my surprise I saw Scowl and the hunters, who should have been snoring, standing in a group and talking to each other in frightened whispers.  I called Scowl to me and asked what was the matter.

“Nothing, Baas,” he said with a shamefaced air; “only there are so many spooks about this place.  They have been passing in and out of it all night.”

“Spooks, you idiot!” I answered.  “Probably they were people going to visit the Nyanga, Zikali.”

“Perhaps, Baas; only then we do not know why they should all look like dead people—­princes, some of them, by their dress—­and walk upon the air a man’s height from the ground.”

“Pooh!” I replied.  “Do you not know the difference between owls in the mist and dead kings?  Make ready, for we trek at once; the air here is full of fever.”

“Certainly, Baas,” he said, springing off to obey; and I do not think I ever remember two wagons being got under way quicker than they were that morning.

I merely mention this nonsense to show that the Black Kloof could affect other people’s nerves as well as my own.

In due course I reached Nodwengu without accident, having sent forward one of my hunters to report my approach to Panda.  When my wagons arrived outside the Great Place they were met by none other than my old friend, Maputa, he who had brought me back the pills before our attack upon Bangu.

“Greeting, Macumazahn,” he said.  “I am sent by the King to say that you are welcome and to point you out a good place to outspan; also to give you permission to trade as much as you will in this town, since he knows that your dealings are always fair.”