As I have already hinted, my attempts in the sleep line proved a failure, for whenever I did drop off I was pursued by bad dreams, which resulted from lying down so soon after supper.  I heard the cries of desperate men in their mortal agony.  I saw a rain-swollen river; its waters were red with blood.  I beheld a vision of one who I knew by his dress to be a Zulu king, although I could not see his face.  He was flying and staggering with weariness as he fled.  A great hound followed him.  It lifted its head from the spoor; it was that of Zikali set upon the hound’s body, Zikali who laughed instead of baying.  Then one whose copper ornaments tinkled as she walked, entered beside me, whispering into my ear.  “A quarter of a hundred years have gone by since we talked together in this haunted kloof,” she seemed to whisper, “and before we talk again face to face there remain to pass of years”—­

Here she ceased, though naturally I should have liked to hear the number.  But that is just where dreams break down.  They tell us only of what we know, or can evolve therefrom.  Of what it is impossible for us to know they tell us nothing—­at least as a general rule.

I woke up with a start, and feeling stifled in that hot place and aggravated by the sound of Anscombe’s peaceful breathing, threw a coat about me and, removing the door-board, crept into the air.  The night was still, the stars shone, and at a little distance the embers of the fire still glowed.  By it was seated a figure wrapped in a kaross.  The end of a piece of wood that the fire had eaten through fell on to the red ashes and flamed up brightly.  By its light I saw that the figure was Nombe’s.  The eternal smile was still upon her face, the smile which suggested a knowledge of hidden things that from moment to moment amused her soul.  Her lips moved as though she were talking to an invisible companion, and from time to time, like one who acts upon directions, she took a pinch of ashes and blew them, either towards Heda’s hut or ours.  Yes, she did this when all decent young women should have been asleep, like one who keeps some unholy, midnight assignation.

Talking with her master, Zikali, or trying to cast spells upon us, confound her! thought I to myself, and very silently crept back into the hut.  Afterwards it occurred to me that she might have had another motive, namely of watching to see that none of us left the huts.

The rest of the night went by somehow.  Once, listening with all my ears, I thought that I caught the sound of a number of men tramping and of some low word of command, but as I heard no more, concluded that fancy had deceived me.  There I lay, puzzling over the situation till my head ached, and wondering how we were to get clear of the Black Kloof and Zikali, and out of Zululand which I gathered was no place for white people at the moment.