“Nay, Umslopogaas, I believe that by her magic she drew our stories out of our own hearts and then set them forth to us afresh, putting her own colour on them.  Also it may be that she drew something from Hans, and from Goroko and the other Zulus with you, and thus paid us the fee that she had promised for our service, but in lung-sick oxen and barren cows, not in good cattle, Umslopogaas.”

He nodded and said,

“Though at the time I seemed to go mad and though I know that women are false and men must follow where they lead them, never will I believe that my brother, the woman-hater, and Nada are lovers in the land below and have there forgotten me, the comrade of one of them and the husband of the other.  Moreover I hold, Macumazahn, that you and I have met with a just reward for our folly.

“We have sought to look through the bottom of the grave at things which the Great-Great in Heaven above did not mean that men should see, and now that we have seen we are unhappier than we were, since such dreams burn themselves upon the heart as a red-hot iron burns the hide of an ox, so that the hair will never grow again where it has been and the hide is marred.

“To you, Watcher-by-Night, I say, ’Content yourself with your watching and whatever it may bring to you in fame and wealth.’  And to myself I say, ’Holder of the Axe, content yourself with the axe and what it may bring to you in fair fight and glory’; and to both of us I say, ’Let the Dead sleep unawakened until we go to join them, which surely will be soon enough.’”

“Good words, Umslopogaas, but they should have been spoken ere ever we set out on this journey.”

“Not so, Macumazahn, since that journey we were fated to make to save one who lies yonder, the Lady Sad-Eyes, and, as they tell me, is well again.  Also Zikali willed it, and who can resist the will of the Opener-of-Roads?  So it is made and we have seen many strange things and won some glory and come to know how deep is the pool of our own foolishness, who thought that we could search out the secrets of Death, and there have only found those of a witch’s mind and venom, reflected as in water.  And now having discovered all these things I wish to be gone from this haunted land.  When do we march, Macumazahn?”

“To-morrow morning, I believe, if the Lady Sad-Eyes and the others are well enough, as She-who-commands says they will be.”

“Good.  Then I would sleep who am more weary than I was after I had killed Rezu in the battle on the mountain.”

“Yes,” I answered, “since it is harder to fight ghosts than men, and dreams, if they be bad, are more dreadful than deeds.  Good-night, Umslopogaas.”