“Ha!” I cried, staring at him wildly, my snuff-spoon in mid-air.
How his old eyes laughed; for my confusion was great. And well it might be, for these were the very words wherewith I had taunted the chief of the Blue Cattle on his flaming bed of death. Yet old Masuka had been nowhere near at that time, nor had any who understood that tongue.
“And why could not the ghost of Tauane find that place, my father?” I said. “Being a ghost, he could fly through the air until he found the chamber in the cliff like an eagle’s nest.”
“Not thus would he find it, destroyer of the Bakoni,” was the answer. “‘Through the darkness of the earth’—such were his words.”
“Ha! Was it for good or for ill he spoke thus? Were those all the words of Tauane’s ghost my father?”
“Not so, Untúswa. Soon the ghost went winging through the air, crying and wailing that the place like an eagle’s nest was there, but that the she-eagle had flown away. Why art thou sad of late, son of Ntelani?”
“Thy múti is wonderful, father,” I replied. “Will the she-eagle return? Tell me. Will it return?”
“It will return. Ha! yonder alligators are hungry. They shall be fed. Oh, yes, they shall be fed. The she-eagle will return.”
I liked not his tones, Nkose, and my blood ran chill. For his speech, though dark, could have but one meaning. Lalusini I should behold again; but one or both of us should find death in the alligators’ pool. Well, what matter? One could but die once; and so great was the spell cast over me by the Bakoni sorceress that it seemed, once more to behold her, once more to have speech with her, I would gladly pay the price of death.
“I have a black cow, well in milk, which is one too many in my herd, father,” I said. “It shall be driven forth to-morrow to the place where thy cattle graze.”