“Would you drive away your old friend, Macumazahn, Saduko?” asked Nandie very gently, “Macumazahn, who has come from far to see you?”
He sat up, and, the blankets falling off him, showed me that he was nothing but a living skeleton. Oh! how changed from that lithe and handsome chief whom I used to know. Moreover, his lips quivered and his eyes were full of terrors.
“Is it really you, Macumazahn?” he said in a weak voice. “Come, then, and stand quite close to me, so that he may not get between us,” and he stretched out his bony hand.
I took the hand; it was icy cold.
“Yes, yes, it is I, Saduko,” I said in a cheerful voice; “and there is no man to get between us; only the lady Nandie, your wife, and myself are in the hut; she who watched you has gone.”
“Oh, no, Macumazahn, there is another in the hut whom you cannot see. There he stands,” and he pointed towards the hearth. “Look! The spear is through him and his plume lies on the ground!”
“Through whom, Saduko?”
“Whom? Why, the Prince Umbelazi, whom I betrayed for Mameena’s sake.”
“Why do you talk wind, Saduko?” I asked. “Years ago I saw Indhlovu-ene-Sihlonti die.”
“Die, Macumazahn! We do not die; it is only our flesh that dies. Yes, yes, I have learned that since we parted. Do you not remember his last words: ‘I will haunt you while you live, and when you cease to live, ah! then we shall meet again’? Oh! from that hour to this he has haunted me, Macumazahn—he and the others; and now, now we are about to meet as he promised.”