"Hi! Hallo! Who's that," I sung out. There was no answer. Then I remembered that with my mind running upon Hensley I had used English. Yet the figure was that of a native. It wanted not the blackness of it in the uncertain light; the stealthy, sinuous movement of it was enough to show that. Yet, this certainty only enhanced the mystery. Natives are not wont to prowl about after dark with no apparent object, especially alone. In the first place they have a very whole-hearted dread of the night side of Nature--in the next such a proceeding is apt to gain for them more than a suspicion of practising the arts of witchcraft--a fatal reputation to set up yonder beyond the river, and, I hesitate not to assert, a very dangerous one to gain even here on the Queen's side. The figure straightened up, causing my fool of a horse to snort and describe further antics. Then a voice: "Inkose! Iqalaqala. Be not afraid. It is only Ukozi, who watches over the world while the world sleeps--ah--ah! while the world sleeps." I must own to feeling something of a thrill at the name. This Ukozi was a diviner, or witch doctor, whose reputation was second to none among the Natal border tribes--ay and a great deal wider--and that is saying a good deal. Now of course the very mention of a witch doctor should arouse nothing but contemptuous merriment; yet the pretentions of the class are not all humbug by any means, indeed I have known a good few white men--hard bitten, up-country going men with no nonsense or superstition about them--who never fail to treat a genuine native witch doctor with very real consideration indeed. "Greeting, father of mystery," I answered, with some vague idea that the meeting all so unexpected and somewhat weird, might yet be not without its bearings on the fate of Hensley. "You are bent upon _muti_ indeed, when the world is half through its dark time and the moon is low." "M-m!" he hummed. "The moon is low. Just so, Iqalaqala. You will not go home to-night." "Not go home!" I echoed, meaning to humour him, and yet, in my innermost self, conscious that there was a very real note of curiosity that could only come of whole, or partial, belief in the question. "And why should I not go home to-night?" He shrugged his shoulders impressively. Then he said: "Who may tell? But--you will not." I tried to laugh good-humouredly, but it was not genuine. Yet was not the thing absurd? Here was I, letting myself be humbugged--almost scared--by an old charlatan of a witch doctor, a fellow who made a comfortable living out of his credulous countrymen by fooling them with charms and spells and omens, and all sorts of similar quackery--I, a white man, with--I haven't mentioned it before--an English public school education. "Here, my father," I said, producing a goodly twist of roll tobacco. "This is good--always good--whether by a comfortable fire, or searching for _muti_ materials under the moon."