“With spears perhaps.  Macumazana, learn that the Kendah are not one but two people.  As you may have heard before, we are the White Kendah, but there are also Black Kendah who outnumber us many times over, though in the beginning we from the north conquered them, or so says our history.  The White Kendah have their own territory; but as there is no other road, to reach it we must pass through that of the Black Kendah, where it is always possible that we may be attacked, especially as we bring strangers into the land.”

“How is it then that the Black Kendah allow you to live at all, Harut, if they are so much the more numerous?”

“Because of fear, Macumazana.  They fear our wisdom and the decrees of the Heavenly Child spoken through the mouth of its oracle, which, if it is offended, can bring a curse upon them.  Still, if they find us outside our borders they may kill us, if they can, as we may kill them if we find them within our borders.”

“Indeed, Harut.  Then it looks to me as though there were a war breeding between you.”

“A war is breeding, Macumazana, the last great war in which either the White Kendah or the Black Kendah must perish.  Or perhaps both will die together.  Maybe that is the real reason why we have asked you to be our guest, Macumazana,” and with their usual courteous bows, both of them rose and departed before I could reply.

“You see how it stands,” I said to Ragnall.  “We have been brought here to fight for our friends, Harut, Marut and Co., against their rebellious subjects, or rather the king who reigns jointly with them.”

“It looks like it,” he replied quietly, “but doubtless we shall find out the truth in time and meanwhile speculation is no good.  Do you go to bed, Quatermain, I will watch till midnight and then wake you.”

That night passed in safety.  Next day we marched before the dawn, passing through country that grew continually better watered and more fertile, though it was still open plain but sloping upwards ever more steeply.  On this plain I saw herds of antelopes and what in the distance looked like cattle, but no human being.  Before evening we camped where there was good water and plenty of food for the camels.

While the camp was being set Harut came and invited us to follow him to the outposts, whence he said we should see a view.  We walked with him, a matter of not more than a quarter of a mile to the head of that rise up which we had been travelling all day, and thence perceived one of the most glorious prospects on which my eyes have fallen in all great Africa.  From where we stood the land sloped steeply for a matter of ten or fifteen miles, till finally the fall ended in a vast plain like to the bottom of a gigantic saucer, that I presume in some far time of the world’s history was once an enormous lake.  A river ran east and west across this plain and into it fell tributaries.  Far beyond this river the contours of the country rose again till, many, many miles away, there appeared a solitary hill, tumulus-shaped, which seemed to be covered with bush.