Then, led by Hans, we crept round the house to where there was a five-foot stone wall at the back of the stable.  Beyond this wall, within the circle of some huts where my Kaffirs lived, was an open space with an ant-heap floor where they did their cooking.  Here, facing us, sat Mavovo, while in a ring around him were all the hunters who were to accompany us; also Jack, the lame Griqua, and the two house-boys.  In front of Mavovo burned a number of little wood fires.  I counted them and found that there were fourteen, which, I reflected, was the exact number of our hunters, plus ourselves.  One of the hunters was engaged in feeding these fires with little bits of stick and handfuls of dried grass so as to keep them burning brightly.  The others sat round perfectly silent and watched with rapt attention.  Mavovo himself looked like a man who is asleep.  He was crouched on his haunches with his big head resting almost upon his knees.  About his middle was a snake-skin, and round his neck an ornament that appeared to be made of human teeth.  On his right side lay a pile of feathers from the wings of vultures, and on his left a little heap of silver money—­I suppose the fees paid by the hunters for whom he was divining.

After we had watched him for some while from our shelter behind the wall he appeared to wake out of his sleep.  First he muttered; then he looked up to the moon and seemed to say a prayer of which I could not catch the words.  Next he shuddered three times convulsively and exclaimed in a clear voice: 

“My Snake has come.  It is within me.  Now I can hear, now I can see.”

Three of the little fires, those immediately in front of him, were larger than the others.  He took up his bundle of vultures’ feathers, selected one with care, held it towards the sky, then passed it through the flame of the centre one of the three fires, uttering as he did so, my native name, Macumazana.  Withdrawing it from the flame he examined the charred edges of the feather very carefully, a proceeding that caused a cold shiver to go down my back, for I knew well that he was inquiring of his “Spirit” what would be my fate upon this expedition.  How it answered, I cannot tell, for he laid the feather down and took another, with which he went through the same process.  This time, however, the name he called out was Mwamwazela, which in its shortened form of Wazela, was the Kaffir appellation that the natives had given to Stephen Somers.  It means a Smile, and no doubt was selected for him because of his pleasant, smiling countenance.

Having passed it through the right-hand fire of the three, he examined it and laid it down.

So it went on.  One after another he called out the names of the hunters, beginning with his own as captain; passed the feather which represented each of them through the particular fire of his destiny, examined and laid it down.  After this he seemed to go to sleep again for a few minutes, then woke up as a man does from a natural slumber, yawned and stretched himself.