the words of this savage with exactitude.  In fact, Mr. Somers, this reckless person intimates, in short that some power with which he is not acquainted—­ he calls it the ’Strength that makes the Sun to shine and broiders the blanket of the night with stars’ (forgive me for repeating his silly words), caused him ’to be born into this world, and, at an hour already appointed, will draw him from this world back into its dark, eternal bosom, there to be rocked in sleep, or nursed to life again, according to its unknown will’—­I translate exactly, Mr. Somers, although I do not know what it all means—­and that he does not care a curse when this happens.  Still, he says that whereas he is growing old and has known many sorrows—­he alludes here, I gather, to some nigger wives of his whom another savage knocked on the head; also to a child to whom he appears to have been attached—­you are young with all your days and, he hopes, joys, before you.  Therefore he would gladly do anything in his power to save your life, because although you are white and he is black he has conceived an affection for you and looks on you as his child.  Yes, Mr. Somers, although I blush to repeat it, this black fellow says he looks upon you as his child.  He adds, indeed, that if the opportunity arises, he will gladly give his life to save your life, and that it cuts his heart in two to refuse you anything.  Still he must refuse this request of yours, that he will ask the creature he calls his Snake—­what he means by that, I don’t know, Mr. Somers—­to declare when the white man, named Dogeetah, will arrive in this place.  For this reason, that he told Mr. Quatermain when he laughed at him about his divinations that he would make no more magic for him or any of you, and that he will die rather than break his word.  That’s all, Mr. Somers, and I dare say you will think—­quite enough, too.”

“I understand,” replied Stephen.  “Tell the chief, Mavovo” (I observed he laid an emphasis on the word, chief) “that I quite understand, and that I thank him very much for explaining things to me so fully.  Then ask him whether, as the matter is so important, there is no way out of this trouble?”

Sammy translated into Zulu, which he spoke perfectly, as I noted without interpolations or additions.

“Only one way,” answered Mavovo in the intervals of taking snuff.  “It is that Macumazana himself shall ask me to do this thing, Macumazana is my old chief and friend, and for his sake I will forget what in the case of others I should always remember.  If he will come and ask me, without mockery, to exercise my skill on behalf of all of us, I will try to exercise it, although I know very well that he believes it to be but as an idle little whirlwind that stirs the dust, that raises the dust and lets it fall again without purpose or meaning, forgetting, as the wise white men forget, that even the wind which blows the dust is the same that breathes in our nostrils, and that to it, we also are as is the dust.”