“Why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock,” asked the girl Noma, whom he had taken to wife, “when you might be yonder with Hafela, preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?”

“Because I am a king-vulture, and I wait for the sick bull to die,” he answered, pointing to the Great Place beneath him.  “Say, why should I bring Hafela to prey upon a carcase I have marked down for my own?”

“Now you speak well,” said Noma; “the bull suffers from a strange disease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd.”

“That is so,” answered her husband, “and, therefore, I am patient.”

It was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, with results very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated.  Although he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that he was also a strong ruler, and that there was little chance of the sceptre slipping from his hand—­none indeed while the white teacher was there to guide him.

“What will you do now, Hokosa?” asked Noma his wife upon a certain day.  “Will you turn to Hafela after all?”

“No,” answered Hokosa; “I will consult my ancient lore.  Listen.  Whatever else is false, this is true:  that magic exists, and I am its master.  For a while it seemed to me that the white man was greater at the art than I am; but of late I have watched him and listened to his doctrines, and I believe that this is not so.  It is true that in the beginning he read my plans in a dream, or otherwise; it is true that he hurled the lightning back upon my head; but I hold that these things were accidents.  Again and again he has told us that he is not a wizard; and if this be so, he can be overcome.”

“How, husband?”

“How?  By wizardry.  This very night, Noma, with your help I will consult the dead, as I have done in bygone time, and learn the future from their lips which cannot lie.”

“So be it; though the task is hateful to me, and I hate you who force me to it.”

Noma answered thus with passion, but her eyes shone as she spoke:  for those who have once tasted the cup of magic are ever drawn to drink of it again, even when they fear the draught.

****

It was midnight, and Hokosa with his wife stood in the burying-ground of the kings of the Amasuka.  Before Owen came upon his mission it was death to visit this spot except upon the occasion of the laying to rest of one of the royal blood, or to offer the annual sacrifice to the spirits of the dead.  Even beneath the bright moon that shone upon it the place seemed terrible.  Here in the bosom of the hills was an amphitheatre, surrounded by walls of rock varying from five hundred to a thousand feet in height.  In this amphitheatre grew great mimosa thorns, and above them towered pillars of granite, set there not by the hand of man but by nature.  It would seem that the Amasuka, led by some fine instinct, had chosen these columns as fitting memorials of their kings, at the least a departed monarch lay at the foot of each of them.