I passed through the gates and into the hut of Baleka. Unandi was alone in the hut with my sister.
“The child is born,” said the mother of the king. “Look at him, Mopo, son of Makedama!”
I looked. He was a great child with large black eyes like the eyes of Chaka the king; and Unandi, too, looked at me. “Where is it?” she whispered.
I loosed the mat and drew the dead child from the medicines, glancing round fearfully as I did so.
“Give me the living babe,” I whispered back.
They gave it to me and I took of a drug that I knew and rubbed it on the tongue of the child. Now this drug has the power to make the tongue it touches dumb for awhile. Then I wrapped up the child in my medicines and again bound the mat about the bundle. But round the throat of the still-born babe I tied a string of fibre as though I had strangled it, and wrapped it loosely in a piece of matting.
Now for the first time I spoke to Baleka: “Woman,” I said, “and thou also, Mother of the Heavens, I have done your wish, but know that before all is finished this deed shall bring about the death of many. Be secret as the grave, for the grave yawns for you both.”
I went again, bearing the mat containing the dead child in my right hand. But the bundle of medicines that held the living one I fastened across my shoulders. I passed out of the Emposeni, and, as I went, I held up the bundle in my right hand to the guards, showing them that which was in it, but saying nothing.
“It is good,” they said, nodding.
But now ill-fortune found me, for just outside the Emposeni I met three of the king’s messengers.