They called Lamalana the barren woman, the Drinker of Life, but she had at least drunken without ostentation, and if she murdered with her own large hands, or staked men and women from a sheer lust of cruelty, there were none alive to speak against her.
Outside the town of Lombobo[6] was a patch of beaten ground where no grass grew, and this place was called "wa boma," the killing ground.
Here, before the white men came, sacrifices were made openly, and it was perhaps for this association and because it was, from its very openness, free from the danger of the eavesdropper, that Lamalana and her father would sit by the hour, whilst he told her the story of ancient horrors—never too horrible for the woman who swayed to and fro as she listened as one who was hypnotized.
"Lord," said she, "the Walker of the Night comes not alone to the Lombobo; all people up and down the river have seen him, and to my mind he is a sign of great fortune showing that ghosts are with us. Now, if you are very brave, we will have a killing greater than any. Is there no hole in the hill[7] which Bosambo dug for your shame? And, lord, do not the people of the Ochori say that this child M'sambo is the light of his father's life? O ko! Bosambo shall be sorry."
Later they walked in the forest speaking, for they had no fear of the spirits which the last slanting rays of the dying sun unlocked from the trees. And they talked and walked, and Lombobo huntsmen, returning through the wood, gave them a wide berth, for Lamalana was possessed of an eye which was notoriously evil.
"Let us go back to the city," said Lamalana, "for now I see that you are very brave and not a blind old man."
"There will be a great palaver and who knows but M'ilitani will come with his soldiers?"
She laughed loudly and hoarsely, making the silent forest ring with harsh noise.
"O ko!" she said, then laughed no more.
In the centre of the path was a man; in the half light she saw the leopard skin and the strange belt of metal about his waist.