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Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant la nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants iiiustrent la mAthode. errata i to B pelure, on A 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 V ^' ul- --^"iltfHlBiiiij ' ^ ( i y / y f •^^ ^^\:^^ ^ - '■ •/ yy ALLANS WIFE. — BT- H. RIDER HAGGARD, ) " << OTT-Bi " «< 1VCU " (( AUTHOR OF "CLEOPATRA, "SHE, "JESS, "KING SOLOMONS MINES," ETC. Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the Office of the Minister o Agriculture, by William Bryce, in the year on^ thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine _.. TORONTO: WILLIAM BRYCE, PUBLISHER. 1889. i3f 2r.n702 1 LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOE. (( WE SPOKE NO WORD — WE HAD NO WORDS TO SPEAK. i< ON RUSHED THE ELEPHANT, AWFUL TO SEK Frontispiece. 38 (< ON RUSHED THE ZULUS RIGHT UP TO THE LAAgER, STRIVING TO FORCE A WAY IN " . . ()2 **SEE, SIR, HERS IS WATER IN YOUR OWN BOTTLE " 88 (( we said the words, i placed the ring upon Stella's finger, and it was done " 139 SHE GAVE ONE CRY, THEN AS I CAUGHT HER IN MY ▲RMS 8HB FAINT BD . 170 1 k^ rioNS. PAOK. TO ntispiece. :r, ON MY 38 88 139 170 ** We ipoke no word— we had no words to Bpeak." <( j DEDICATION. My Dear Macumazahn,-- It was from you that I borrowed the native name of that Allan who has become as well known to me as any other friend I have. It is therefore fitting that I should dedicate to you this, his last talo — the story of his wife, and the history of some further adventures which befel him. They will remind you of many an African yarn — that with the baboons may recall an experience of your own which I did not share. And perhaps they will do more than this. Perhaps they will bring back to you some of the long past romance of days that are lost to us. The country of which Allan Quatermain tells his tales is now, for the most part, as well known and explored as the fields of Norfolk. Where we shot and trekked and galloped, scarcely seeing the face of civilized man, there the gold-seeker builds his cities. The shadow of the flag of Britain has ceased to fall upon the Transvaal plains ; the game has gone ; the misty charm of the morning has become the glare of day. All is changed. The blue gums that we planted in the garden of the " Palatial " must be large trees by now, and the " Palatial " itself has passed from us. Jess sat in it waiting for her lover after we were gone. There she nursed him back to life. But Jess is dead, and strangers own it, or perhaps it ia a ruin. 6 DEDICA TION. Nor us too, Macumazahn, as for the land we loved, the morning is outworn, the midday sun burns overhead, and at times the way is weary. Few of those wc knew are left. Some are victims to war and murder, their bones strew the veldt; death has taken some in a more gentle fashion; others are hidden from us, we know not where. We might well fear to return to that land lest we also should see ghosts. But though we walk apart to-day, the past yet looks upon us with its unalterable eyes. Still we can remember many a boyish enterprise and adventure, lightly undertaken, which now would strike us as hazardous in- deed. Still we ^'an recall the long familiar line of the Petoria Horse, the face of war and panic, the weariness of midnight patrols, aye, and hear the roar of guns echoed from the Shameful Hill. To you then, Macumazahn, in memory of those eventful years of youth that we passed together in the African towns and on the African veldt, I dedicate these pages, subscribing myself now as always. Your sincere friend, Indanda, To Arthur H. D. Cochrane, Esq. jd, the .d, and ,re left, ew the ishion ; 5 iiiight uld see last yet we can . lightly ious in- ) of the riness of echoed eventful African pages, nd, )ANDA, ALLAN'S WIFE. » « ^^ >4 CHAPTER I. T^IAY be remembered that in the last pages of hia diary,* written just before his dvath, Allan Quatermain makes allusion to his long dead wife, stating that he has written of her fully else- where. "When his death was known, his papers were handed to myself as his literary executor. Among them I found two manu- scripts, of which the follow- ing is one. The other is simply a record of events in which Mr. Quatermain was not personally concerned — a Zulu novel, the story of which was told to him by the hero many years after the tragedy had occurred. But with this we have nothing to do at present. * Se« " Allan Quatermaiu," ALLAN'S WIFE. I have often thought (Mr. Quatermain's manuscript begins) that I would set down on Ipaper the events con- nected with my marriage, and the loss of my most deai- wife. Many years have now passed since that event, and to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows it is still keen enough. On two or three occasions I have even begun the record. Once I gave it up because the writing of it depressed me beyond bearing, once because I suddenly was called away upon a journey, and the third time because a Kaffir boy found my manu- script convenient for lighting the kitchen fire. But now that I am at leisure here in England, I will make a fourth attempt. If I succeed, the story may serve to interest some one in after years when I am dead and gone. It is a wild tale enough, and suggests some curious reflections. I am the son of a missionary. My father was originally curate in charge of a small parish in Oxfordshire. He had already been some years married to my dear mother when he went there, and he had four children, of whom I was the youngest. I remember faintly the place where we lived. It was an ancient long grey house, facing the road. There was a very large tree of some sort in the garden. It was hollow, and we children used to play about inside of it, and knock knots of wood from the rough bark. We all slept in a kind of attic, and niv mother always came up and kissed us when we were in bed. I used to wake up and see her bending over me, a candle in her hand. There was a curious kind of pole projecting from the wall over my bed. Once I was dread- fully frightened because my eldest brother made me hang 1 ■f I toil hou. jour A bigi two of ti the] a tal rtow( hous One my J child a gre stooc with stoo( in h coat, he w ward or se was can I with teeth that know now, mad( ALLANS WIFE. nuscript Qta con- lost dear rent, and , though or three I gave it i bearing, journey, ly nianu- md, I will may serve . dead and ae curious originally He had ther when lom I was where we facing the ort in the id to play from the B, and my ve were in over me, a ind of pole was dread- le me hang i ■i to it by my hands. That is all I remember about our old home. It has been pulled down long ago, or 1 would journey there to see it. A little further down the road was a large liouse with big iron gates to it, and on the top of the gate pillars sat two stone lions, which were so hideous that 1 was afraid of them. One could see the house by peeping through the bars of the gates. It was a gloomy-looking place, witli a tall yew hedge round it ; but in the summer-time some rtowers grew round the sun-dial in the grass plat. This house was called the Hall, and Squire Carson lived there. One Christmas — it must have been the Christmas before my father emigrated, or I should not remember it — we children went to a Christmas-tree at the Hall. There wan a great party there, and footmen wearing red waistcoats stood at the door. In the dining-room, which was panelled with black oak, was the Christmas-tree. Squire Carson stood in front of it. He was a tall, dark man, very quiet in his manners, and he wore a bunch of seals on his waist- coat. We used to think him old, but as a matter of fact he was then not more than forty. He had been, as I after- wards learned, a great traveller in his youth, but some six or seven years before this date had married a lady who was half a Spaniard — a papist, my father called her. I can remember her well. She was small and very pretty, with a rounded figure, large black eyes, aad glittering teeth. She epoke English with a curious accent. I suppose that I must have been a funny child to look at, and I know that my hair stood up on my head then as it does now, for I still have a sketch of myself that my mother made of me, in which this peculiarity is strongly marked. 10 ALLAN'S WIFE. m On this occasion of the Christmas-tree I rememher that Mrs. Carson turned to a tall, foreign -looking gentleman who stood beside her, and, tapping him affectionately on the shoulder with her gold eye-glasses, said — " Look, cousin — look at that droll little boy with the big brown eyes ; his hair is like a — what you call him ? — scrubbing bush. Oh, what a droll little boy ! " The tall gentleman pulled at his moustache, and, taking Mrs. Carson's hand in his, began to smooth my hair down with it till I heard her whisper — ** Leave go my hand, cousin. Thomas is looking like — like the thunderstorm." Thomas was the name of Mr. Carson, her husband. After that J hid myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I was shy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire's only child, giving the children presents off the tree. She was dressed as Father Christmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, and had large dark eyes, which I thought more beautiful than anything I had ever seen. At last it came to my turn to have a present — oddly enough, considered in the light of future events, it was a large monkey. She reached it down from one of the lower boughs of the tree and handed it to me, saying — ** Dat is my Christmas present to you, little Allan Quatermain." As she did so her sleeve, which was covered with cotton wool, spangled over with something that shone, touched one of the tapers — how I do not know — and caught fire, and the flame ran up her arm towards her throat. She stood quite still. I suppose that she was paralyzed with ALLAN'S WIFE. aber that gentleman )nately on with the 11 him ?— nd, taking hair down Ling like — 3band. ^d a chair, I, who was nts off the with some had large 1 anything to have a of future down from d it to me, ttle Allan 7ith cotton ,e, touched lught fire, roat. She jyzed with f fear; and the ladies who were near screamed very loud, but did nothing. Then some impulse seized me — perhaps instinct would be a better word to use, considering my age. I threw myself upon the child, and, beating at the fire with my hands, mercifully succeeded in extinguishing it before it really got hold. My wrists were so badly burned that they had to be wrapped up in wool for a long time after- wards, but with the exception of a single burn upon her throat, little Stella Carson was not much hurt. This is all that I remember about the Christmas-tree at the Hall. What happened afterwards is lost to me, but to this day in my sleep I ofcen see little Stella's sweet face and the stare of terror in her dark eyes as the fire ran up her arm. This, however, is not wonderful, for I had, humanly speaking, saved the life of her who was destined to be my wife. The next event which I can recall clearly is that my mother and three brothers all fell ill of fever, owing, as I afterwards learned, to the poisoning of our well by some evil-minded person, who threw a dead sheep into it. » It must have been while they were ill that Squire Carson I came one day to the vicarage. The weather was still cold, for there was a fire in the study, and I sat before the fire writing letters on a piece of paper with a pencil, while my father walked up and down the room talking to himself. Afterwards I knew that he was praying for the lives of his wife and children. Presently a servant came to the door and said that some one wanted to see him. " It is the squire, sir," said the maid, " and he says he particularly wishes to see you." " Very well," answered my father, wearily, and presently ALLAN'S WIFE, Squire Carson came in. His face was white and haggard, and his eyes shone so fiercely that I was afraid of him. "Forgive me for intruding on you at such a time. Qnatermain," he said in a hoarse voice, '* but to-morrow 1 leave this place for ever, and I wish to speak to you before I go — indeed, I must speak to you.** " Shall I send Allan away ? " said my father, pointing to me. "No; let him bide. He will not understand." Nor. indeed, did I at the time, but I remembered every word, and in after years their meaning grew on me. "First tell me," he went on, "how are they?" and he pointed upwards with his thumb. " My wife and two of the boys are beyond hope," my father answered, with a groan. " I do not know how it will go with the third. The Lord's will be done ! " " The Lord's will be done," the squire echoed, solemnly. "And now, Quatermain, I'sten — my wife's gone." " Gone ! " my father answered. " Who with ? " " With that foreign cousin of hers. It seems from a letter she left that she always cared for him, not for me. She married me because she thought me a rich English milord. Now she has run through my property, or most of it, and gone. I don't know where. Luckily, she did not care to encumber her new career with the child ; Stella is left to me." "That is what comes of marrying a papist, Carson," said my father. That was his fault; he was as good and charitable a man as ever lived, but he was bigoted. " What are you r;oing to do — follow her ? " He laughed bitterly in answer. V ALLAN'S WIFE. 18 haggard, f him. 1 a time, -morrow 1 you before pointing to id." Nor, f word, and ?" and he hope,'* my V how it will I, solemnly. ems from a not for me. ch English , or most of she did not d; Stella is arson," said good and [ted. "What " Follow her ! " he said ; " why should I follow her ? If I met her I might kill her or him, or both of them, because of the shame they have brought upon my child's name. No, I never want to look upon her face again. I trusted her, I tell you, and she has betrayed me. Let her go and find her fate. But I am going too. I am weary of my life." " Surely, Carson, surely," said my father, " you do not mean " '• No, no ; not that. Death comes soon enough. But I will leave this civilized world that is a living lie. We will -go right away into the wilds, my child and I, and hide our ihame. Where ? I don't know where. Anywhere so long as there are no white faces, no smooth educated tongues." "You are mad, Carson," my father answered. "How %ill you live ? How will you educate Stella ? Be a man ind live it down." •' I will be a man, and I will live it down, but not here, Quatermain. Education ! Was not she — that woman who was my wife — was not she highly educated ? — the Severest woman in the country forsooth. Too clever for me, Quatermain — too clever by half. No, no, Stella shall be brought up in a different school ; if it be possible, she shall forget her very name. Good-bye, old friend, good-bye for ever. Do not try to find me out, henceforth I shall be like one dead to you, to you and all I knew," and he was gone. ** Mad," said my father, with a heavy sigh. " His trouble has turned his brain. But he will think better of it." At that moment the nurse came hurrying in and whispered something in his ear. My father's face turned u ALLAN'S WIFE. deadly pale. He clutched at the table to support himself, then staggered from the room. My mother was dying ! It was some days afterwards, I do not know exactly how long, that my father took me by the hand and led me upstairs into the big room that had been my mother's bedroom. There she lay, dead in her coflfin, with flowers in her hand. Along the wall of the room were arranged three little white beds, and on each of the beds lay one of my brothers. They all looked as though they were asleep, and they all had flowers in their hands. My father told me to kiss them all, because I should not see them any more, and I did so, though I was very frightened. I did not know why. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me. " The Lord hath given," he said, ** and the Lord hatli taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord." I cried very much, and he took me downstairs, and after that I have only a confused memory of men dressed in black carrying heavy burdens towards the grey church- yard ! Next comes a vision of a great ship and wide tossing ^ waters. My father could no longer bear to live in England ^®l after the loss that had fallen on him, and made up hie ^^fBeqiu mind to emigrate to South Africa. We must have been "®^ tou poor at the time — indeed, I believe that a large portion of ''°^» as our income went from my father on my mother's death. ^®* I At any rate we tru,velled with the steerage passengers, and'''*® I ne the intense discomfort of the journey with the rough ways '^aiiranc of our fellow emigrants still remain upon my mind. AtP^^'^iig last it came to an end, and we reached Africa, which I was ^t maj not to leave again for many, many years. In those da} s * 'Pch a^ I ALLAN'S WIFE. n himBclt, dying '. ^ exactly I and led 7 mother's th flowers arranged is lay one they were Mv father t Bee them civilization had not made any great progress in Southern lAfrica. My father went up the country and became a jmissionary among the Kaffirs, near to where the town of Cradock now stands, and here I grew to manhood. There ^ere a few Boer farmers in the neighbourhood, and gradu- ally a little settlement of whites gathered round our mission itation — a drunken Scotch blacksmith and wheelwright Was about the most interesting character, who, when he was sober, could quote the Scottish poet Burns and the Ingoldsby Legends literally by the page. It was from him that I contracted a fondness for the latter amusing writings, • Vitened. which has never left me. Burns I never «ared for so much, and I^obably because of the Scottish dialect which repelled me. What little education I got wae from my father, but I never T d hath ^^ much leaning toward books, nor he much time to teach t^m to me. On the other band, I was always a keen ofcerver of the ways of men and nature. By the time tlikt I was twenty I could speak Dutch and three or four r dialects perfectly, and I doubt if there was anybody iuBouth Africa who understood native ways of thought and - . , tosema *^^^ "'^o^® completely than I did. Also I was really a . -piYigland ^^ S^°^ ^^^^* ^^^ horseman, and I think — as, indeed, my - , ^|g sufeequent career proves to have been the case — a great Vi ebeen^®*^ tougher than the majority of men. Though I was 'tion of^^^f*' ^^ ^^^' * ^^8^^» small man, nothing seemed to tire \ ' death. ■'^®* I could bear any amount of exposure and privation, ^^(^ind I never met the native who was my master in feats of istairs, and nen dressed rey church- rough ways ndurance. Of .mind. AtP«*l""S< '^hich I ^as » ^ay those da) s'W«h course, all that is different now, I am y early manhood. wondered that I did not run absolutely wild surroundingd, but I was held back from this by my I Id ^1 ALLAN'S WIFE. w ■I I father's society. He was one of the gentlest and most refined men that I ever met ; even the most savage Kaffir loved him, and his influence was a very good one for me. He used to call himself one of the world's failures. Would that there were more such failures. Every evening when his work was done he would take his prayer-book, and, sitting on the little stoep of our station, would read the evening psalms to himself. Sometimes there was not light enough for this, but it made no difference, he kne\v them all by heart. When he had finished he would lool out across the cultivated lands where the mission Kaffirs had their huts. But I knew it was not these he saw, but rather the grey English church, and the graves ranged side by side before the yew near the wicket gate. It was there on the stoep that he died. He had no: been well, and one evening I was talking to him, and hi mind went back to Oxfordshire and my mother. H I cam spoke of her a good deal, saying that she had never beei flither'l USUI our with Bee : pi n jpaoK p " fifle ^e 01 that 3 Jon w I I Ti lime, ] ho gr to thel Ulen, out of his mind for a single day during all these years, an that he rejoiced to think he was drawing n«ar that Ian whither she had gone. Then he asked me if I remembers that night when Squire Carson came into the study at tl vicarage, and told him that his wife had run away, and tb he vras going to change his name and bury himself in soc remote land. I said that I remembered it perfectly. " I wonder where he went to," said my father, "and if! and his daughter Stella are still alive. Well, well ! I sba never meet them again. But life is a strange thing. Alia and you may. If you ever do, give them my kind love." mh. f» ^ ALLAN'S WIFE. 17 and most rage Kaffir le for me. es. Would , ening when -book, and, lid read the re was not ice, he kne^ 3 would looli ssion Kaffirs ther the giey by side befovt He had no ) him, and bv mother. H 4 never beei ^ese years, an L«ar that Ian I remembert le study at tl away, and tli limself in soe Ibher, "and if ^ 11, well ! 1 8b ge thing. Alia ^ U kind love." After that I left him. We had been suffering more than usual from the depredations of the Kaffir thieves, who stole our sheep at night, and, as I had done before, and not without success, I had determined to watch the kraal and see if I could catch them. Indeed, it was from this habit pi mine of watching at night that J first got my native name of Macumazahn, which may be roughly translated ms " he who sleeps with one eye open." So I took my iifle and rose to go. But he called me to him and kissed ^e on the forehead, saying, ** God bless you, Allan. I hope |hat you will think of your old father sometimes, and that you will lead a good and happy life." r I remember that I did not much like his tone at the lime, but set it down to an attack of low spirits, to which {ie grew very subject as the years went on. I went down If the kraal and watched till within an hour of sunrise, ||^en, as no thieves appeared, returned to the station. As ame near I was astonished to see a figure sitting in my er's chair. At first I thought it must be a drunken ir, then that my father had fallen asleep there. And /3 had, indeed, for he was dead ! CHAPTER n. WHEN I had buried my father, and seen his successor installed in his place — for the station was the property of the Society — I set to work to carry out a plan which I had lon^ cherished, but been unable to execute because it would have involved separation from my father. Put shortly, it was to undertake a trading journey of explora- tion right through the countries now known as the Free State and tbe Transvaal, and as much further North as I could go. It was an adventurous scheme, for though the emigrant Boers had begun to occupy positions in these territories, they were still to all practical purposes unexplored. But I was now alone in the world, and it mattered little what became of me; so, driven on by the overmastering love of adventure, which, old as I am, will wa cai an( Ma itg onIi Was llock ' took BUpp Amoi Whicl iuppc fxhai (lis neigh iblJow l^rt i Tw searc and u M perhaps still be my cause of death, I determined to under- *°® P^« take it. Accordingly I sold such stock and goods as we had upon the station, reserving only the two best waggons and twc pairs of oxen. The proceeds I invested in such goods as were then in fashion, for trading purposes, and in guns aiio ammunition. The guns would have moved any moderr explorer to merriment ; but such as they were I manager to do a good deal of execution with them. One of then name oar sti home. foIJowii Ieavin< flome anxiou^ were hi I ALLAN'S WIFE. Id was a single-barrelled, smooth bore, fitted for percussion caps — a roer we called it — which threw a three-ounce ball, and was charged with a handful of coarse black powder. Many is the elephant that I killed with that roer, although it generally knocked me backwards when I fired it, which I only did under compulsion. The best of the lot, perhaps, was a double-barrelled No. 12 shot-gun, but it had flint locks. Also there were some old tower muskets, which might or might not throw straight at seventy yards. I took six Kaffirs with me, and three good horses, which were supposed to be salted— that is, proof against sickness. Among the Kaffirs was an old fellow named Indaba-zimbi, vwhich, being translated, means ** tongue of iron." I suppose he got this name from his strident voice and f xhaustless eloquence. This man was a great character in pis way. He had been a noted witch-doctor among a lieighbouring tribe, and came to the station under the IpUowing circumstances, which, as he plays a considarable pirt in this history, are perhaps worth recording. Two years before my father's death I had occasion to search the country round for some lost oxen. After a long and useless quest it occurred to me that I had better go to the place where the oxen were bred by a Kaffir chief, whose name I forget, but whose kraal was about fifty miles from our station. There I went, and found the oxen safe at we bad upor: j^^j^g rpjjg ^Yiiei entertained me handsomely, and on the ons and tv?c fQiiQ^i^g morning I went to pay my respects to him before ucb goods a; ig^yijjg^ ajj^j ^y^g somewhat surprised to find a collection of |d in g^^^ ^^^^ some hundreds of men and women sitting round him any moderi mu-iously watching the sky in which the thunder-clouds re 1 manage^ ^^.^ banking up in a very ominous way. One of then successor le property Btn which 1 ite because ELtber. Put of explora- 18 the Free er Nortb as for tbougb positions in eal purposes orld, and it len on by the as 1 am, wil' led to under 20 ALLAN'S WIFE, • II •* You had better wait, white man," said the chief, " and see the rain doctors fight the lightning." 1 inquired what he meant, and learned that this man, Indaba-zimbi, had for some years occupied the position of wizard-in-chief to the tribe, although he was not a member of it, having been born in the country now known as Zulu- land. But a son of the chief's, a man of about thirty, had lately set up as a rival in supernatural powers. This irritated Indaba-zimbi beyond measure, and a quarrel ensued between the two witch-doctors that resulted in a challenge to trial by lightning being given and accepted. These were the conditions. The rivals must await the coming of a serious thunderstorm, no ordinary tempest would serve their turn. Then, carrying assegais in their hands, they must take their stand within fifty paces of each other upon a certain patch of ground where the big thunderbolts were observed to strike continually, and by the exercise of their occult powers and invocations to the lightning, must strive to avert death from themselves and bring it on their rival. The terms of this singular match had been arranged a month previously, but no storm worthv of the occasion had arisen. Now the local weather- prophets believed it to be brewing. I inquired what would happen if neither of the men were struck, and was told that they must then wait for another storm. If they escaped the second time, however, they would be held to be equal in power, and be jointly con- sulted by the tribe on occasions of importance. The prospect of being a spectator of so unusual a sigli; overcame my desire to be gone, and I accepted the chief; invitation to see it out. Before mid -day I regretted it, fo: 11 J ALLAN'S WIFE. 21 ief, " and \\n% man, loaition of a member Q as Zulu- thirty, bad era. This a quarrel jsulted in a d accepted. , await tbe try tempest ais in tbeir fty paces of here the big ally, and by itiona to the smaelves and igular match at no Btorm 3cal weather- bhe men were it for another lowever, they e jointly con- B. nusual a sigli'. ed the chief: Bgretted it, fo: though the western heavens {][rew diirkor, and darker, and the still air heralded the coining of the storm, yet it did not come. By four o'clock it became obvious that it must burst soon — at sunset, the old chief said, and in the com- pany of the whole assembly I moved down to the place of coml)at. The kraal was built on the top of a hill, and below it the land sloped gently to the banks of a river about half a mile awav. On the hither side of the bank was the piece of land that was, the natives said, •Moved of the light- ning." Here the magicians took up their stand, while the spectators grouped themselves on the hillside t 'oout two hundred yards away which was, I thought rather too near to be pleasant. When we had sat there for awhile my curiosity overcame me, and I asked leave of the chief to go down and inspect the arena. He said I might do so at my own risk. I told him that the iir^ ALLAN'S WIFE. from above would not hurt white men, and went and found that it was a bed of iron ore, thinly covered with grass, which of course accounted for its attracting the lightning from the storms as they travelled along the line of the river. At each end of this iron-stone area were placed the combatants, Indaba-zimbi facing the east, and his rival the west, and before each there burned a little fire made of some scented root. Moreover, they ^^ere dressed in all the paraphernalia of their craft, snake-skins, fish bladders, and 1 know not what beside, while round their necks hung circlets of baboons' teeth and bones from human hands. First I went to the western end where the chiefs son stood. He was pointing with his assegai towards the advancing storm, and invoking it in a voice of great ex- citement. " Come, fire, and lick up Indaba-zimbi ! *' Hear me. Storm Devil, and lick Indaba-zimbi with your red tongue ! " Spit on him with your rain I " Whirl him away in your breath ! *' Make him, as nothing — melt the marrow in his bones ! " Kun into his beart and burn away the lies ! ** Show all the people who is the true Witch Finder ! *' Let me not be put to shame in the eyes of this white man ! " Thus he spoke, or rather chanted, and all the while rubbed his broad chest — for he was a very fine man — with some filthy compound of medicine ai monti. After a while, getting tired of his song, I walked across the iron-stone, to where Indaba-zimbi sat by his fire. He was not chanting at all, but his performance was much I <(