As the Bee spoke, by degrees her voice sank lower and lower till it was almost inaudible. Then it ceased altogether and she seemed to pass from trance to sleep. Hadden, who had been listening to her with an amused and cynical smile, now laughed aloud.
“Why do you laugh, White Man?” asked Nahoon angrily.
“I laugh at my own folly in wasting time listening to the nonsense of that lying fraud.”
“It is no nonsense, White Man.”
“Indeed? Then will you tell me what it means?”
“I cannot tell you what it means yet, but her words have to do with a woman and a leopard, and with your fate and my fate.”
Hadden shrugged his shoulders, not thinking the matter worth further argument, and at that moment the Bee woke up shivering, drew the red snake from her head-dress and coiling it about her throat wrapped herself again in the greasy kaross.
“Are you satisfied with my wisdom, Inkoos?” she asked of Hadden.
“I am satisfied that you are one of the cleverest cheats in Zululand, mother,” he answered coolly. “Now, what is there to pay?”
The Bee took no offence at this rude speech, though for a second or two the look in her eyes grew strangely like that which they had seen in those of the snake when the fumes of the fire made it angry.