“All—all done in vain! Oh! Mameena, Ma—mee—na, Ma—meena!” and fell back dead.
“Saduko has gone away,” said Nandie, as she drew a blanket over his face. “But I wonder,” she added with a little hysterical smile, “oh! how I wonder who it was the Spirit of Mameena told him that she loved—Mameena, who was born without a heart?”
I made no answer, for at that moment I heard a very curious sound, which seemed to me to proceed from somewhere above the hut. Of what did it remind me? Ah! I knew. It was like the sound of the dreadful laughter of Zikali, Opener-of-Roads—Zikali, the “Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born.”
Doubtless, however, it was only the cry of some storm-driven night bird. Or perhaps it was an hyena that laughed—an hyena that scented death.