“Why,” I said, “but how can that be?  You are an old man, and the time you talk of must reach back three men’s lives.  How therefore could She have ordered the death of anybody at the beginning of the life of your grandmother, seeing that herself she would not have been born?”

Again he smiled—­that same faint, peculiar smile, and with a deep bow departed, without making any answer; nor did we see him again for five days.

When we had gone we discussed the situation, which filled me with alarm.  I did not at all like the accounts of this mysterious Queen, “She-who-must-be-obeyed,” or more shortly She, who apparently ordered the execution of any unfortunate stranger in a fashion so unmerciful.  Leo, too, was depressed about it, but consoled himself by triumphantly pointing out that this She was undoubtedly the person referred to in the writing on the potsherd and in his father’s letter, in proof of which he advanced Billali’s allusions to her age and power.  I was by this time too overwhelmed with the whole course of events that I had not even the heart left to dispute a proposition so absurd, so I suggested that we should try to go out and get a bath, of which we all stood sadly in need.

Accordingly, having indicated our wish to a middle-aged individual of an unusually saturnine cast of countenance, even among this saturnine people, who appeared to be deputed to look after us now that the Father of the hamlet had departed, we started in a body—­having first lit our pipes.  Outside the cave we found quite a crowd of people evidently watching for our appearance, but when they saw us come out smoking they vanished this way and that, calling out that we were great magicians.  Indeed, nothing about us created so great a sensation as our tobacco smoke—­not even our firearms.[*] After this we succeeded in reaching a stream that had its source in a strong ground spring, and taking our bath in peace, though some of the women, not excepting Ustane, showed a decided inclination to follow us even there.

[*] We found tobacco growing in this country as it does in every other part of Africa, and, although they were so absolutely ignorant of its other blessed qualities, the Amahagger use it habitually in the form of snuff and also for medicinal purposes.—­L.  H. H.

By the time that we had finished this most refreshing bath the sun was setting; indeed, when we got back to the big cave it had already set.  The cave itself was full of people gathered round fires—­for several more had now been lighted—­and eating their evening meal by their lurid light, and by that of various lamps which were set about or hung upon the walls.  These lamps were of a rude manufacture of baked earthenware, and of all shapes, some of them graceful enough.  The larger ones were formed of big red earthenware pots, filled with clarified melted fat, and having a reed wick stuck through a wooden disk which filled the top of the pot.