“Why?” I asked.

“Because, as you know, Macumazahn, it is a law among us Zulus never to disturb one who is mad and engaged in talking with his Spirit.  Moreover, had I done so, probably he would have shot me, nor should I have complained who would have thrust myself in where I had no right to be.”

“Then why did you not come to call me, Umslopogaas?”

“Because then he might have shot you, for, as I have seen for some time he is inspired of heaven and knows not what he does upon the earth, thinking only of the Lady Sad-Eyes who has been stolen away from him, as is but natural.  So I left him walking up and down, and when I returned later to look, saw that he was gone, as I thought into this walled hut.  Now when Hansi tells me that he is not here, I have come to speak to you about him.”

“No, certainly he is not here,” I said, and I went to look at the bed where Robertson slept to see if it had been used that evening.

Then for the first time I saw lying on it a piece of paper torn from a pocketbook and addressed to myself.  I seized and read it.  It ran thus: 

“The merciful Lord has sent me a vision of Inez and shown me where she is over the cliff-edge away to the west, also the road to her.  In my sleep I heard her talking to me.  She told me that she is in great danger—­that they are going to marry her to some brute—­and called to me to come at once and save her; yes, and to come alone without saying anything to anyone.  So I am going at once.  Don’t be frightened or trouble about me.  All will be well, all will be quite well.  I will tell you the rest when we meet.”

Horrorstruck I translated this insane screed to Umslopogaas and Hans.  The former nodded gravely.

“Did I not tell you that he was talking with his Spirit, Macumazahn?” (I had rendered “the merciful Lord” as the Good Spirit.) “Well, he has gone and doubtless his Spirit will take care of him.  It is finished.”

“At any rate we cannot, Baas,” broke in Hans, who I think feared that I might send him out to look for Robertson.  “I can follow most spoors, but not on such a night as this when one could cut the blackness into lumps and build a wall of it.”

“Yes,” I answered, “he has gone and nothing can be done at present,” though to myself I reflected that probably he had not gone far and would be found when the moon rose, or at any rate on the following morning.

Still I was most uneasy about the man who, as I had noted for a long while, was losing his balance more and more.  The shock of the barbarous and dreadful slaughter of his half-breed children and of the abduction of Inez by these grim, man-eating savages began the business, and I think that it was increased and accentuated by his sudden conversion to complete temperance after years of heavy drinking.

When I persuaded him to this course I was very proud of myself, thinking that I had done a clever thing, but now I was not so sure.  Perhaps it would have been better if he had continued to drink something, at any rate for a while, but the trouble is that in such cases there is generally no half-way house.  A man, or still more a woman, given to this frailty either turns aggressively sober or remains very drunken.  At any rate, even if I had made a mess of it, I had acted for the best and could not blame myself.