Now he shifted himself along the ground on his haunches some paces to the right, and began to search about, groping with his long fingers.  “Where, where?” he muttered.  “Oh, I understand, further under the root, a jackal buried it, did it?  Pah! how hard is this soil.  Ah!  I have it, but look, Noma, a stone has cut my finger.  I have it, I have it,” and from beneath the root of some fallen tree he drew out the skull of a child and, holding it in his right hand, softly rubbed the mould off it with his left.

“Yes, Noma, it might be yours, it is of the right size, but how can I be sure?  What is it you say?  The teeth?  Ah! now I remember.  Only the day before you were taken I pulled out that front tooth, did I not, and beneath it was another that was strangely split in two.  If this skull was yours, it will be there.  Come to the fire, Noma, and let us look; the moonlight is faint, is it not?”

Back to the fire he shifted himself, and bending towards the blaze, made an examination.

“True, Noma, true!  Here is the split tooth, white as when I saw it all those years ago.  Oh! dear child of my body, dear child of my spirit, for we do not beget with the body alone, Noma, as you know better than I do to-day, I greet you,” and pressing the skull to his lips, he kissed it, then set it down in front of him between himself and the fire with the face part pointing to the king, and burst into one of his eerie and terrible laughs.

A low moan went up from his audience, and I felt the skin of Goza, who had shrunk against me, break into a profuse sweat.  Then suddenly Zikali’s voice changed one more and became hard and businesslike, if I may call it so, similar to that of other professional doctors.

“You have sent for me, O King, as those who went before you have sent when great things were about to happen.  What is the matter on which you would speak to me?”

“You know well, Opener of Roads,” answered Cetewayo, rather shakily I thought.  “The matter is one of peace or war.  The English threaten me and my people and make great demands on me; amongst others that the army should be disbanded.  I can set them all out if you will.  If I refuse to do as they bid me, then within a few days they will invade Zululand; indeed their soldiers are already gathered at the drifts.”

“It is not needful, King,” answered Zikali, “since I know what all know, neither more nor less.  The winds whisper the demands of the white men, the birds sing them, the hyenas howl them at night.  Let us see how the matter stands.  When your father died Sompseu (Sir T. Shepstone), the great white chief, came from the English Government to name you king.  This he could not do according to our law, since how can a stranger name the King of the Zulus?  Therefore the Council of the Nation and the doctors—­I was not among them, King—­moved the spirit of Chaka the Lion into the body of Sompseu and made him as Chaka was and gave him power to name you to rule over the Zulus.  So it came about that to the English Queen through the spirit of Chaka you swore certain things; that slaying for witchcraft should be abolished; that no man should die without fair and open trial, and other matters.”