The circumstance was this:  On emerging from the cart one morning, where I slept to keep an eye upon the valuables, for it will be remembered that we had a considerable sum in gold with us, also Heda’s jewels, a Swazi informed me that a messenger wished to see me.  I asked what messenger and whence did he come.  He replied that the messenger was a witch-doctoress named Nombe, and that she came from Zululand and said that I knew her father.

I bade the man bring her to me, wondering who on earth she could be, for it is not usual for the Zulus to send women as messengers, and from whom she came.  However, I knew exactly what she would be like, some hideous old hag smelling horribly of grease and other abominations, with a worn snake skin and some human bones tied about her.

Presently she came, escorted by the Swazi who was grinning, for I think he guessed what I expected to see.  I stared and rubbed my eyes, thinking that I must still be asleep, for instead of a fat old Isanusi there appeared a tall and graceful young woman, rather light-coloured, with deep and quiet eyes and a by no means ill-favoured face, remarkable for a fixed and somewhat mysterious smile.  She was a witch-doctoress sure enough, for she wore in her hair the regulation bladders and about her neck the circlet of baboon’s teeth, also round her middle a girdle from which hung little bags of medicines.

She contemplated me gravely and I contemplated her, waiting till she should choose to speak.  At length, having examined me inch by inch, she saluted by raising her rounded arm and tapering hand, and remarked in a soft, full voice—­

“All is as the picture told.  I perceive before me the lord Macumazahn.”

I thought this a strange saying, seeing that I could not recollect having given my photograph to any one in Zululand.

“You need no magic to tell you that, doctoress,” I remarked, “but where did you see my picture?”

“In the dust far away,” she replied.

“And who showed it to you?”

“One who knew you, O Macumazahn, in the years before I came out of the Darkness, one named Opener of Roads, and with him another who also knew you in those years, one who has gone down to the Darkness.”

Now for some occult reason I shrank from asking the name of this “one who had gone down to the Darkness,” although I was sure that she was waiting for the question.  So I merely remarked, without showing surprise—­

“So Zikali still lives, does he?  He should have been dead long ago.”

“You know well that he lives, Macumazahn, for how could he die till his work was accomplished?  Moreover, you will remember that he spoke to you when last moon was but just past her full—­in a dream, Macumazahn.  I brought that dream, although you did not see me.”

“Pish!” I exclaimed.  “Have done with your talk of dreams.  Who thinks anything of dreams?”