Then Nomayeshè went around the circle, grovelling at the feet of each individual separately, and beseeching that she might be shown the spot where her Nodada, her little wild duck, the child she had carried in her womb and suckled at her breast, lay perishing in the cold and darkness. Some of the men were evidently inclined to tell, but the warning frowns of the witch-doctors deterred them, and they maintained the cruelty of silence.
Then Nomayeshè broke out into fierce rage, and cursed all present, and their fathers and mothers before them as dogs and apes. She wished that they might die under the spears of an enemy, and that the bodies of their children might shrivel and hiss under their burning roof-trees. This outburst came as a great relief to the men. Her invective was easier to endure than her entreaties, and the drunken crew only laughed at her fury.
While all this was going on, the two women who had followed Nomayeshè arrived at the kraal. They had found out, from some other women they had met, all that Nomayeshè wanted to know. These women described accurately the situation of the flat stone, so when Nomayeshè staggered back from the beer-drinkers, and met her two friends outside the circle of huts, she was led at once by them to the gorge where she knew that her lost child lay hidden.
It was dusk when they reached the stone. With unerring instinct the mother made straight for the largest crevice, through which she at once descended into the darkness. The two women waited in silence, standing apart from each other. Soon a faint shriek was heard issuing as though from the bowels of the earth. The women looked at each other with awe in their eyes... Nomayeshè emerged from the crevice, clasping her dead child to her bosom.
It was past midnight when the three women, carrying Nodada’s body, arrived at Zwilibanzi’s kraal. Their return journey was made by a longer but safer route. Nomayeshè placed the little body on a mat, and then laid herself down next to it. The two women lit a fire, and prepared some food. When they went to Nomayeshè to try and persuade her to eat, they found that she was dead.