“I followed Lamla down the hill along the path to the millet-field, and then we sat down under the tree. The dogs came too, and Lamla got very angry because he could not at first manage to drive them back. ‘Lamla,’ said I, ‘you have bewitched me with those yellow flowers, and we will both be killed by Palelo’s sons.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘it is you that have bewitched me, and I only used those flowers to cure myself.’
“After a while we went on together, Lamla leading me by the hand. When we reached a little bush near the kraal he was living at, he left me for a short time, and then he returned with two bundles, one of which he gave me to carry. We walked on all night. Just before daybreak we turned to the left and entered a thick forest. Here we spent the day. We did not light a fire. Lamla had brought some millet already boiled, in a skin bag. We ate this, and also some roots which he dug up with the blade of his spear. From a hollow tree he brought some of the sweetest honey I have ever tasted. He did not seem to mind the bees stinging him at all.
“All this time we hardly spoke a word. In the afternoon we were sitting together hidden in some thick, green brushwood; I heard a rustle and, looking up, saw a long green snake gliding through the branches just over Lamla’s head. I called out: ‘Look, there is a snake.’ He just smiled and, without standing up, killed the snake with one blow of his stick. It nearly fell on him, so I screamed out, but he laughed and comforted me and said that he had been doctored by a great wizard against all dangerous things except me.
“Then he asked me how I liked being bewitched. I replied: ‘I like it very well now, because the charm is on me, but I know that by and by I will be very angry.’ He laughed very loud at this. Afterwards he asked me if I knew what had really happened. I answered: ‘Yes, Lamla, you wicked man, you have bewitched me and made me follow you away from my home.’ ‘No, you are mistaken,’ said he, ‘I am not Lamla at all, but your husband Palelo in Lamla’s body; Lamla is still at the kraal in the body of Palelo.’ I could not understand how this could be, and I now know that he was talking nonsense, but at the time the charm was so strong on me that I would have believed anything he told me.
“That night we crossed the Umzimvubu, and reached the big forest below the Tabankulu. Here we laid down and slept. The sun was high when we awoke. We travelled on through the forest, and again rested and spent the night on the other side.
“Next day we went on without concealment through the open country. We were now in Pondoland, so had nothing to fear, so we just wandered on quietly from kraal to kraal, getting food in plenty; for Lamla had such pleasant ways, especially with the women, that we were always made welcome. Lamla said I was his wife, whom he had fetched from the Pondomisi country, and no one seemed to doubt his words.
“When we reached the Baca country at Umzimkulu, we went straight to the kraal of Lamla’s father, and when he told his relations that I was his wife, and that he had paid ‘lobola’ for me, they all laughed at him, and asked whether horns or feathers grew on the ‘lobola’ cattle. I did not see at the time why they should have doubted his words, but I found out the reason afterwards.
“At first we lived very happily, for the charm was still strong upon me, but after some months Lamla began to go away from home very often, and then I heard that he was courting another girl. Well, he married her, and she and I quarrelled, and he took her part and beat me, so I became very miserable. It was nearly a year after we came to Umzimkulu that my baby, a boy, was born.
“One day, when my baby was over a month old, who should walk up to the kraal but the Matshoba, old Palelo’s ‘great son.’ I picked up the child and ran away into the bush, but next day I got hungry and had to return. Matshoba was not very angry. It turned out that Palelo was dead. Matshoba said that I must return with him. I was not sorry to do so, because the charm had now quite passed away from me.
“Matshoba brought a law case before the chief against Lamla for taking me away. I told all about the charm which had been used, and Lamla did not deny having used it. He was ordered by the chief to pay ten head of cattle as a fine. These his father had to pay, because Lamla had no cattle of his own. The chief said that if Lamla’s father had got him a wife Lamla would not have gone about bewitching the wives of other people. When the cattle were paid the chief took five head, and Matshoba and I drove the other five to my old home. Soon afterwards I was married to Momlotyolo.