“He too is of royal blood in his own land,” I said.

“If so, we are akin, Allan.”

Then I bowed deeply to her in my best manner and rising from her couch for the first time she stood up, looking very tall and commanding, and bowed back.

After this I went to find the others on the further side of the curtains, except Hans, who had run down the long narrow hall and through the mats at its end.  We followed, marching with dignity behind Billali and between the double line of guards, who raised their spears as we passed them, and on the further side of the mats discovered Hans, still looking terrified.

“Baas,” he said to me as we threaded our way through the court of columns, “in my life I have seen all kinds of dreadful things and faced them, but never have I been so much afraid as I am of that white witch.  Baas, I think that she is the devil of whom your reverend father, the Predikant, used to talk so much, or perhaps his wife.”

“If so, Hans,” I answered, “the devil is not so black as he is painted.  But I advise you to be careful of what you say as she may have long ears.”

“It doesn’t matter at all what one says, Baas, because she reads thoughts before they pass the lips.  I felt her doing it there in that room.  And do you be careful, Baas, or she will eat up your spirit and make you fall in love with her, who, I expect, is very ugly indeed, since otherwise she would not wear a veil.  Whoever saw a pretty woman tie up her head in a sack, Baas?”

“Perhaps she does this because she is so beautiful, Hans, that she fears the hearts of men who look upon her would melt.”

“Oh, no, Baas, all women want to melt men’s hearts; the more the better.  They seem to have other things in their minds, but really they think of nothing else until they are too old and ugly, and it takes them a long while to be sure of that.”

So Hans went on talking his shrewd nonsense till, following so far as I could see, the same road as that by which we had come, we reached our quarters, where we found food prepared for us, broiled goat’s flesh with corncakes and milk, I think it was; also beds for us two white men covered with skin rugs and blankets woven of wool.

These quarters, I should explain, consisted of rooms in a house built of stone of which the walls had once been painted.  The roof of the house was gone now, for we could see the stars shining above us, but as the air was very soft in this sheltered plain, this was an advantage rather than otherwise.  The largest room was reserved for Robertson and myself, while another at the back was given to Umslopogaas and his Zulus, and a third to the two wounded men.

Billali showed us these arrangements by the light of lamps and apologised that they were not better because, as he explained, the place was a ruin and there had been no time to build us a house.  He added that we might sleep without fear as we were guarded and none would dare to harm the guests of She-who-commands, on whom he was sure we, or at any rate I and the black Warrior, had produced an excellent impression.  Then he bowed himself out, saying that he would return in the morning, and left us to our own devices.