“‘Would he come with me to Ulundi?’ asked Heda.

“’Not so, Lady.  He would stay here under guard, but quite safe, and you will be brought back to him, safe.  Choose now, with death on the one hand and safety on the other.  I would sleep a little.  Talk the matter over in your own tongue and when it is settled awaken me again,’ and he shut his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.

“So we discussed the situation, if you can call it discussion when we were both nearly mad.  Heda wished to go.  I begged her to let me be killed rather than trust herself into the hands of this old villain.  She pointed out that even if I were killed, which she admitted might not happen, she would still be in his hands whence she could only escape by her own death, whereas if she went there was a chance that we might both continue to live, and that after all death was easy to find.  So in the end I gave way and we woke up Zikali and told him so.

“He seemed pleased and spoke to us gently, saying, ’I was sure that wisdom dwelt behind those bright eyes of yours, Lady, and again I promise you that neither you nor the lord your lover shall come to any harm.  Also that in payment I and my child, Nombe, will protect you even with our lives, and further, that I will bring back your friend, Macumazahn, to you, though not yet.  Now go and be happy together.  Nombe will tell the lady Heddana when she is to start.  Of all this say nothing on your peril to the woman Kaatje, since if you do, it will be necessary that she should be made silent.  Indeed, lest she should learn something, to-morrow I shall send her on to await you at Ulundi, therefore be not surprised if you see her go, and take no heed of aught she may say in going.  Nombe, my child, will fill her place as servant to the lady Heddana and sleep with her at night that she may not be lonely or afraid.’

“Then he clapped his hands again and servants came and conducted us back to the huts.  And now, Allan, Heda will go on with the story.”

“Well, Mr. Quatermain,” she said, “nothing more happened that day which we spent with bursting hearts.  Kaatje did not question us as to what the witch-doctor had said after she was sent away.  Indeed I noticed that she was growing very stupid and drowsy, like a person who has been drugged, as I daresay she was, and would insist upon beginning to pack up the things in a foolish kind of way, muttering something about our trekking on the following day.  The night passed as usual, Kaatje sleeping very heavily by my side and snoring so much” (here I groaned sympathetically) “that I could get little rest.  On the next morning after breakfast as the huts were very hot, Nombe suggested that we should sit under the shadow of the overhanging rock, just where we are now.  Accordingly we went, and being tired out with all our troubles and bad nights, I fell into a doze, and so, I think, did Maurice, Nombe sitting near to us and singing all the while, a very queer kind of song.