And now, Nkose, there befell one of those occurrences which will befall even the wisest and coolest and most experienced of any of us when least we look for it, which are destined to alter all our most carefully laid plans, for there is ever some moment in life when the wisest and most carefully thinking man is no better than a fool. And this is how it came about.
One evening I was walking back, along the river bank, to my kraal, alone—thinking, as ever, upon my now fast ripening scheme—when I heard my name called out in a quavering croak. Turning, I beheld the shrivelled figure of an old crone, perched upon a point of rock overhanging a long deep reach. Beside her was a bundle of sticks she had been gathering.
“Give me snuff, Untúswa, O Great Fighter,” she cried, stretching out a bony claw. “Give me snuff from that pretty box stuck in your ear, for I have none.”
I stepped aside, and, taking the horn tube from the lobe of my ear, poured half its contents into her skinny old hand, and as I did so I recognised in the old witch one who had an evil repute among us for Umtagati; indeed, it was reported that she had been “smelt out” and killed in the time of Tshaka, but had somehow managed to come to life again, and had not been interfered with since because of our custom under which no one can be killed twice.
She was very, very old—so old that beyond a wisp or two of white wool her scalp was entirely bald. Her limbs were mere bits of stick, to which even her few rags of clothing would hardly cling. Looking at her squatting there, I thought she would make an exact mate for old Gasitye, as I had seen him in the tagati cave, squatting in like fashion; and I must have laughed at the thought, for she said, with some show of fire:
“Laugh, Untúswa, laugh, I am old and shrivelled, am I not? But that is a complaint you will never suffer from. Oh, no! Oh, no!”
“What mean you, mother?” I said, pausing as I was about to continue on my way, for there was that in her words which fitted not well in with my thoughts just then. “I am a fighting man, and such may reasonably not live to grow old.”
“Ah, ah! A fighting man. Thou art more. He who would sit in the seat of the mighty is hardly likely to die of old age,” she answered slowly, poking her head forward with a meaning chuckle.
“Now,” I thought, “this old witch knows too much. I will just drop her over into the river and make her safe.”
But before I could do so, she again croaked out: