“And ate it afterwards, I’ll be bound,” I answered.
“Oh! it must be you,” he went on, “who cannot be deceived, for it is true we ate that ox, combining the sacrifice to your Spirit with a feast; for why should anything be wasted when one is poor? Yes, yes, it must be you, for who else would come creeping about a man’s kraal at night, except the Watcher-by-Night? Enter, Macumazahn, and be welcome.”
So I entered and ate a good meal while we talked over old times.
“And now, where is Saduko?” I asked suddenly as I lit my pipe.
“Saduko?” he answered, his face changing as he spoke. “Oh! of course he is here. You know I came away with him from Zululand. Why? Well, to tell the truth, because after the part we had played—against my will, Macumazahn—at the battle of Endondakusuka, I thought it safer to be away from a country where those who have worn their karosses inside out find many enemies and few friends.”
“Quite so,” I said. “But about Saduko?”
“Oh, I told you, did I not? He is in the next hut, and dying!”
“Dying! What of, Tshoza?”
“I don’t know,” he answered mysteriously; “but I think he must be bewitched. For a long while, a year or more, he has eaten little and cannot bear to be alone in the dark; indeed, ever since he left Zululand he has been very strange and moody.”
Now I remembered what old Zikali had said to me years before to the effect that Saduko was living with a ghost which would kill him.