“My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and had a son by his favourite wife.  When the babe was three years old, just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.  Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, ’The king Imotu is no king.’  And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his kraal not able to move.

“Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks since he was born, and stripping the ‘moocha’ (waist-cloth) off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, ’Behold your king whom I have saved for you even to this day!’

“Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason and the knowledge of truth, cried out—­’The king!  The king!’ but I knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the twins, and our lawful king.  Then just as the tumult was at its height Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi—­that is, by interpretation, the Lightning.

“‘What is this noise?’ he asked.  ‘Why cry ye The king!  The king!’

“Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the heart with his knife.  And the people being fickle, and ever ready to worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, ’Twala is king! Now we know that Twala is king!’”

“And what became of Imotu’s wife and her son Ignosi?  Did Twala kill them too?”

“Nay, my lord.  When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the child with a cry and ran away.  Two days afterward she came to a kraal very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate.  But at nightfall a little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi.”

“Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the Kukuana people?”

“That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle.  If he lives he is king; but, alas! he is long dead.”

“See, my lord,” and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us.  “That is the kraal where the wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi.  It is there that we shall sleep to-night, if, indeed,” he added doubtfully, “my lords sleep at all upon this earth.”