Then Owen went up to the tree and John with him, only John would not pass beneath the shadow of its branches; but stood by wondering, while his master bound a handkerchief about his mouth.

“How did he know that the breath of the tree is poisonous?” John wondered.

Owen walked to the bole of the tree, and breaking off some of the finger-like leaves of the creeper that twined about it, he pressed their milky juice into a little bottle that he had made ready.  Then he returned quickly, for the sights and odours of the place were not to be borne.

Outside the circle of the branches he halted, and removed the handkerchief from his mouth.

“Be of good cheer,” he said to John, “and if it should chance that I am called away before my words come true, yet remember my words.  I tell you that this Tree of Death shall become the Tree of Life for all the children of your people.  Look! there above you is its sign and promise.”

John lifted his eyes, following the line of Owen’s outstretched hand, and saw this.  High up upon the tree, and standing clear of all the other branches, was one straight, dead limb, and from this dead limb two arms projected at right angles, also dead and snapped off short.  Had a carpenter fashioned a cross of wood and set it there, its proportions could not have been more proper and exact.  It was very strange to find this symbol of the Christian hope towering above that place of human terror, and stranger still was the purpose which it must serve in a day to come.

Owen and John returned to the guard in silence, and presently they set forward on their journey.  At length, passing beneath a natural arch of rock, they were out of the Valley of Death, and before them, not five hundred paces away, appeared the fence of the Great Place.

This Great Place stood upon a high plateau, in the lap of the surrounding hills, all of which were strongly fortified with schanses, pitfalls, and rough walls of stone.  That plateau may have measured fifteen miles in circumference, and the fence of the town itself was about four miles in circumference.  Within the fence and following its curve, for it was round, stood thousands of dome-shaped huts carefully set out in streets.  Within these again was a stout stockade of timber, enclosing a vast arena of trodden earth, large enough to contain all the cattle of the People of Fire in times of danger, and to serve as a review ground for their impis in times of peace or festival.

At the outer gate of the kraal there was a halt, while the keepers of the gate despatched a messenger to their king to announce the advent of the white man.  Of this pause Owen took advantage to array himself in the surplice and hood which he had brought with him in readiness for that hour.  Then he gave the mule to John to lead behind him.

“What do you, Messenger?” asked the leader of the guard, astonished.

“I clothe myself in my war-dress,” he answered.