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thither, sometimes multiplying itself and dying in the act, sometimes
carried away into the heavens. But if that seed be good and heavy it
may perchance travel a little way on the road it wills. It is well to
try and journey one's road and to fight with the air. Man must die. At
the worst he can but die a little sooner. I will go with thee across
the desert and over the mountains, unless perchance I fall to the
ground on the way, my father."

He paused awhile, and then went on with one of those strange bursts of
rhetorical eloquence that Zulus sometimes indulge in, which to my
mind, full though they are of vain repetitions, show that the race is
by no means devoid of poetic instinct and of intellectual power.

"What is life? Tell me, O white men, who are wise, who know the
secrets of the world, and of the world of stars, and the world that
lies above and around the stars; who flash your words from afar
without a voice; tell me, white men, the secret of our life--whither
it goes and whence it comes!

"You cannot answer me; you know not. Listen, I will answer. Out of the
dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night
we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the
light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere. Life
is nothing. Life is all. It is the Hand with which we hold off Death.
It is the glow-worm that shines in the night-time and is black in the
morning; it is the white breath of the oxen in winter; it is the
little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself at sunset."

"You are a strange man," said Sir Henry, when he had ceased.

Umbopa laughed. "It seems to me that we are much alike, Incubu.
Perhaps /I/ seek a brother over the mountains."

I looked at him suspiciously. "What dost thou mean?" I asked; "what
dost thou know of those mountains?"

"A little; a very little. There is a strange land yonder, a land of
witchcraft and beautiful things; a land of brave people, and of trees,
and streams, and snowy peaks, and of a great white road. I have heard
of it. But what is the good of talking? It grows dark. Those who live
to see will see."

Again I looked at him doubtfully. The man knew too much.

"You need not fear me, Macumazahn," he said, interpreting my look. "I
dig no holes for you to fall in. I make no plots. If ever we cross
those mountains behind the sun I will tell what I know. But Death sits
upon them. Be wise and turn back. Go and hunt elephants, my masters. I
have spoken."

And without another word he lifted his spear in salutation, and
returned towards the camp, where shortly afterwards we found him
cleaning a gun like any other Kafir.

"That is an odd man," said Sir Henry.

"Yes," answered I, "too odd by half. I don't like his little ways. He
knows something, and will not speak out. But I suppose it is no use
quarrelling with him. We are in for a curious trip, and a mysterious
Zulu won't make much difference one way or another.

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