Adventure, February 1917 — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

170 no means ill-favored face remarkable for a fixed and somewhat mysterious smile. She was a witch-doctoress sure enough, for she ~ wore in her hair the regulation bladders and about her neck the circlet of baboon’s teeth, also ’round her middle a girdle from which hung little bags of medicines. She contemplated me gravely and I con- templated her, waiting till she should choose to speak. At length, having examined me inch by inch, she saluted by raising her rounded arm and tapering hand, and re- marked in a soft, full voice: _All is as the picture told. I perceive be- fore me the lord Macumazahn.” I thought this a strange saying, seeing that I could not recollect having given my | photograph to any one in Zululand. “You need no magic to tell you that, doc- toress,” I remarked, “but where did you see my picture?” “Tn the dust far away,” she replied. “And who showed it to you?” “One who knew you, O Macumazahn, in the years before I came out of the dark- ness, one named Opener of Roads, and with him another who also knew you in those years, one who has gone down to the dark- ness.’ ‘Now for some occult reason I shrank from asking the name of this ‘fone who had gone down to the darkness,” although I was sure that she was waiting for the question. So I merely remarked, without showing surprise: “So Zikali still lives, does he? He should have been dead long ago.” “You know well that he lives, Macuma- zahn, for how could he die till his work was accomplished? Moreover, you will remem- -er that he spoke to you when last moon was but just past her full—in a dream, Ma- cumazahn. I brought that dream, although you did not see me.” “Pish!” I exclaimed. “Have done with your talk of dreams. Who thinks anything of dreams?” “You do,” she replied even more placidly than before, “‘you whom that dream has brought hither—with others.” “Vou lie,” I said rudely. ‘The Basutos brought me here.” “‘The Watcher-by-Night is pleased to say that I lie, so doubtless I do lie,” she an- swered, her fixed smile deepening a little. Then she folded her arms across her breast and remained silent. Adventure ~ “You are a messenger, O Seer of pictures — in the dust and bearer of the cup of dreams,”’ I said with sarcasm. ‘‘Who sends a mes- sage by your lips for me, and what are the words of the message?” “My Lords the spirits spoke the message by the mouth of the master Zikali. He sends it on to you by the lips of yourser- vant, the doctoress Nombé.”’ “Are you indeed a doctoress, being so young?” I asked, for somehow I wished to postpone the hearing of that message. “Q Macumazahn, I have heard the call, I have felt the pain in my back, I have drunk of the black medicine and ofthe white medicine, yes, for a whole year. I have been visited by the multitude of spir- its and seen the shades of those who live and of those who are dead. I have dived into the river and drawn my snake from its mud; see, its skin is about me now,” and: opening the mantle she wore she showed _what looked like the skin of a. black mam- ba, fastened ’round her slender body. “I have dwelt in the wilderness alone and lis- tened to its voices. I have sat at the feet of my master, the Opener of Roads, and looked down the road and drunk of his wisdom. Yes, I am in truth a doctoress.” “Well, after all this, you should be as wise as you are pretty.”’ “Once before, Macumazahn, you told a maid of my people that she was pretty and she came to no good end; though toone that was great. Therefore do not say to me that I am pretty, though I am glad that you should think so who can compare me with so many whom you have known,” and she dropped her eyes, looking a little shy. It was the first human touch I had seen about her, and, I was glad to have found a weak spot in her armor. Moreover, from that moment she was always my friend. “As you will, Nombé. Now for your message.” ““My Lords the spirits, speaking through Zikali as one who makes music through a pipe of reeds, say-———” “Never mind what the spirits say. me what Zikali says,” I interrupted. “So be it, Macumazahn. These are the words of Zikali: ‘O Watcher-by-Night, the time draws on when the Thing-who-should- never-have-been-born will be as though he never had been born, whereat he rejoices. But first there is much for him to do, and as he told you nearly three hundred moons Tell (E@) Sie Scomichbooks