it to you and you will see that its stock is shattered.  Perhaps I turned the flash aside, for I am a great thunder-herd, or perhaps it was One mightier than I. That was the third shock, Macumazahn.  Then you were found, still living—­how, the white man, your friend, will tell you.  But you should cherish that dog of yours, Macumazahn, for many a man might have served you worse.  And being strong, though small, or perhaps because you still have work left to do in the world before you leave it for a while, you have lived through all these things and will in time recover, though not yet.”

“I hope so, Zikali, though on the whole I am not sure that I wish to recover.”

“Yes, you do, Macumazahn, because the religion of you white men makes you fear death and what may come after it.  You think of what you call your sins and are afraid lest you should be tortured because of them, not understanding that the spirit must be judged not by what the flesh has done but by what the spirit desired to do, by will not by deed, Macumazahn.  The evil man is he who wishes to do evil, not he who wishes to do good and falls now and again into evil.  Oh!  I have hearkened to your white teachers and I know, I know.”

“Then by your own standard you are evil, Zikali, since you wished to bring about war, and not in vain.”

“Oho!  Macumazahn, you think that, do you, who cannot understand that what seems to be evil is often good.  I wished to bring about war and brought it about, and maybe what bred the wish was all that I have suffered in the past.  But say you, who have seen what the Zulu Power means, who have seen men, women and children killed by the thousand to feed that Power, and who have seen, too, what the English Power means, is it evil that I should wish to destroy the House of the Zulu kings that the English House may take its place and that in a time to come the Black people may be free?”

“You are clever, Zikali, but it is of your own wrongs that you think.  How about that skull which you kissed in the Vale of Bones?”

“Mayhap, Macumazahn, but my wrongs are the wrongs of a nation, therefore I think of the nation, and at least I do not fear death like you white men.  Now hearken.  Presently your friends will tell you a story.  The lady Heddana will tell you how I made use of her for a certain purpose, for which purpose indeed I drew the three of you into Zululand, because without her I could not have brought about this war into which Cetewayo did not wish to enter.  When you have heard that story, do not judge me too hardly, Macumazahn, who had a great end to gain.”

“Yet whatever the story may be, I do judge you hardly, Zikali, who tormented me with a false tale, causing the woman Kaatje to lie to me and swear that she saw these two dead before her—­how I know not.”

“She did not lie to you, Macumazahn.  Has not such a one as I the power to make a fat fool think that she saw what she did not see?  As to how!  How did I make you think in yonder hut of mine that you saw what you did not see—­perhaps.”