Previous - Next

See," and I held up the Winchester repeater; "here
is a hollow staff that shall enable thee to kill even as we kill, only
I lay this charm upon it, thou shalt kill no man with it. If thou
liftest it against a man, it shall kill thee. Stay, I will show thee.
Bid a soldier step forty paces and place the shaft of a spear in the
ground so that the flat blade looks towards us."

In a few seconds it was done.

"Now, see, I will break yonder spear."

Taking a careful sight I fired. The bullet struck the flat of the
spear, and shattered the blade into fragments.

Again the sigh of astonishment went up.

"Now, Twala, we give this magic tube to thee, and by-and-by I will
show thee how to use it; but beware how thou turnest the magic of the
Stars against a man of earth," and I handed him the rifle.

The king took it very gingerly, and laid it down at his feet. As he
did so I observed the wizened monkey-like figure creeping from the
shadow of the hut. It crept on all fours, but when it reached the
place where the king sat it rose upon its feet, and throwing the furry
covering from its face, revealed a most extraordinary and weird
countenance. Apparently it was that of a woman of great age so
shrunken that in size it seemed no larger than the face of a year-old
child, although made up of a number of deep and yellow wrinkles. Set
in these wrinkles was a sunken slit, that represented the mouth,
beneath which the chin curved outwards to a point. There was no nose
to speak of; indeed, the visage might have been taken for that of a
sun-dried corpse had it not been for a pair of large black eyes, still
full of fire and intelligence, which gleamed and played under the
snow-white eyebrows, and the projecting parchment-coloured skull, like
jewels in a charnel-house. As for the head itself, it was perfectly
bare, and yellow in hue, while its wrinkled scalp moved and contracted
like the hood of a cobra.

The figure to which this fearful countenance belonged, a countenance
so fearful indeed that it caused a shiver of fear to pass through us
as we gazed on it, stood still for a moment. Then suddenly it
projected a skinny claw armed with nails nearly an inch long, and
laying it on the shoulder of Twala the king, began to speak in a thin
and piercing voice--

"Listen, O king! Listen, O warriors! Listen, O mountains and plains
and rivers, home of the Kukuana race! Listen, O skies and sun, O rain
and storm and mist! Listen, O men and women, O youths and maidens, and
O ye babes unborn! Listen, all things that live and must die! Listen,
all dead things that shall live again--again to die! Listen, the
spirit of life is in me and I prophesy. I prophesy! I prophesy!"

The words died away in a faint wail, and dread seemed to seize upon
the hearts of all who heard them, including our own. This old woman
was very terrible.

"/Blood! blood! blood!/ rivers of blood; blood everywhere. I see it, I
smell it, I taste it--it is salt! it runs red upon the ground, it

Previous - Next