“Speak,” said his audience, with great anxiety.  “Have you seen?  Have you heard?  What does your Snake tell you of me?  Of me?  Of me?  Of me?”

“I have seen, I have heard,” he answered.  “My Snake tells me that this will be a very dangerous journey.  Of those who go on it six will die by the bullet, by the spear or by sickness, and others will be hurt.”

“Ow?” said one of them, “but which will die and which will come out safe?  Does not your Snake tell you that, O Doctor?”

“Yes, of course my Snake tells me that.  But my Snake tells me also to hold my tongue on the matter, lest some of us should be turned to cowards.  It tells me further that the first who should ask me more, will be one of those who must die.  Now do you ask?  Or you?  Or you?  Or you?  Ask if you will.”

Strange to say no one accepted the invitation.  Never have I seen a body of men so indifferent to the future, at least to every appearance.  One and all they seemed to come to the conclusion that so far as they were concerned it might be left to look after itself.

“My Snake told me something else,” went on Mavovo.  “It is that if among this company there is any jackal of a man who, thinking that he might be one of the six to die, dreams to avoid his fate by deserting, it will be of no use.  For then my Snake will point him out and show me how to deal with him.”

Now with one voice each man present there declared that desertion from the lord Macumazana was the last thing that could possibly occur to him.  Indeed, I believe that those brave fellows spoke truth.  No doubt they put faith in Mavovo’s magic after the fashion of their race.  Still the death he promised was some way off, and each hoped he would be one of the six to escape.  Moreover, the Zulu of those days was too accustomed to death to fear its terrors over much.

One of them did, however, venture to advance the argument, which Mavovo treated with proper contempt, that the shillings paid for this divination should be returned by him to the next heirs of such of them as happened to decease.  Why, he asked, should these pay a shilling in order to be told that they must die?  It seemed unreasonable.

Certainly the Zulu Kaffirs have a queer way of looking at things.

“Hans,” I whispered, “is your fire among those that burn yonder?”

“Not so, Baas,” he wheezed back into my ear.  “Does the Baas think me a fool?  If I must die, I must die; if I am to live, I shall live.  Why then should I pay a shilling to learn what time will declare?  Moreover, yonder Mavovo takes the shillings and frightens everybody, but tells nobody anything. I call it cheating.  But, Baas, do you and the Baas Wazela have no fear.  You did not pay shillings, and therefore Mavovo, though without doubt he is a great Inyanga, cannot really prophesy concerning you, since his Snake will not work without a fee.”

The argument seems remarkably absurd.  Yet it must be common, for now that I come to think of it, no gipsy will tell a “true fortune” unless her hand is crossed with silver.