“What then?”
I hissed the words rather than uttered them. Again that blood-wave surged around my brain. I knew what was coming—knew the worst.
“What then? This,” went on the hag. “They led her to the brink of the pool, and were about to throw her in. But she spoke, and her voice was firm and sweet, as the wind’s whisper. ‘Lay not hands on me,’ she said, ‘for I come of the greatest the world ever saw.’ Then they refrained, and the foremost said, ‘Go in thyself, then, Daughter of the Great, for it is the word of the King. It is our lives or thine.’ Then she looked for one moment in front of her, the moon full on her face, and dropped quietly over. And I heard the splash and the rush through the water, as the alligators seized their meat, even as I have often heard it. But while the moon was on her face, I knew her.”
“Who was she?” I whispered.
“Lalusini, the daughter of that Great One, the founder of all nations. Thine inkosikazi, Untúswa.”
“And the men, who were they?”
“They were chief among the King’s slayers.”
“Their names? Did you not know them, Gegesa?”
“Did I not know them? Ah, ah! who is there I do not know?” And she told me the names of all four, and I laid them up in my memory; for I thought how I would have those slayers let down by thongs over the edge of the rock so that the alligators might eat them piece by piece—might crunch off first a foot, then a leg, and so on, as they dangled there. Oh, what vengeance should be mine!
“But how do I know this is true, thou witch?” I said. “How can I tell it is not all a made-up story?”