“What will you give to know something, Untúswa? What will you give me if I tell you that which you would most like to learn?”
The blood seemed to stand still within me at the words. “That which I would most like to learn”—the secret of Lalusini’s disappearance, of course. I strove to restrain all semblance of anxiety, but the dim eyes of the old hag seemed to pierce my thoughts through and through.
“If it is indeed something I would like to learn, mother, then will I give anything—not too great—you may choose to ask. But, beware of fooling me with old women’s tales.”
“Ha, ha! And the fate of the Daughter of the Great—is that an old woman’s tale?”
“Tell me of that, if you know it, mother,” I said.
“Ah, ah! If I know it. See now, Untúswa, I am old—so old that I am as they of another world. And the other world moves about at night—and I—often I steal out at night and talk with those of another world.”
I murmured assent, and she went on.
“See yon pool, Untúswa?” pointing up the river where the alligators dwelt, to whom were cast those whom the King had doomed to die. “Often, at night, I go out and sit over that pool that I may talk with the ghosts of them who have died there; and they come creeping up, those ghosts of dead men, all dripping and bloody, as though fresh from the alligators’ jaws. Ha! and we have such talks, I, old Gegesa, and those ghosts of dead men—yes, and of women, too, Untúswa—of women, too;” and she paused with a shrill cackle, and leered at me. “There was thy former inkosikazi, Nangeza, she who died there, and she came up and talked with me, saying she should soon have fitting company in the land of ghosts, for it was not healthy to be the inkosikazi of Untúswa. And just then I heard steps—the footsteps of men—although it was night, and the neighbourhood of the pool was one of fear and of death. So I hid myself, Untúswa—crept away behind a stone which the moon threw into a black shadow, and this is what I saw. Four great, fierce looking men came down to the brink of the rock which overhangs the pool, and in their midst was a woman—”
“A woman!” I echoed, staring at her.
“Eh-é! a woman—tall and shapely and beautiful, as a daughter of the Great.”