“Do not boil within yourself, like a pot with a stone on its lid, Macumazahn, because your crafty foot has slipped and you have repeated publicly in one tongue what you had already said secretly in another, and therefore made a promise to both of us. For all the while, Macumazahn, you had made that promise and your white heart would not have suffered you to swallow it again just because we could not hear it with our ears. No, that great white heart of yours would have risen into your throat and shut it fast. So kick away the burning sticks from beneath the water of your anger and let it cease from boiling, and go forth as you have promised, to see wonderful things and do wonderful deeds and snatch the pure and innocent out of the hands of evil gods or men.” “Yes, and burn my fingers, scooping your porridge out of the blazing pot, Zikali,” I said with a snort. “Perhaps, Macumazahn, perhaps, for if I had no porridge to be saved, should I have taken all this trouble? But what does that matter to you, to the brave White Lord who seeks the truth as a thrown spear seeks the heart of the foe? You will find plenty of truth yonder, Macumazahn, new truth, and what does it matter if the spear is a little red after it has reached the heart of things? It can be cleaned again, Macumazahn, it can be cleaned, and amidst many other services, you will have done one to your old friend, Zikali the Cheat.” Here Allan glanced at the clock and stopped. “I say—do you know what the time is?” he said. “Twenty minutes past one—by the head of Chaka. If you fellows want to finish the story to-night, you can do so for yourselves according to taste. I’m off, or out shooting to-morrow I shan’t hit a haystack sitting.” CHAPTER VI. THE BLACK RIVER On the following evening, pleasantly tired after a capital day’s shooting and a good dinner, once more the four of us—Curtis, Good, myself (the Editor) and old Allan—were gathered round the fire in his comfortable den at “The Grange.” “Now then, Allan,” I said, “get on with your tale.” “What tale?” he asked, pretending to forget, for he was always a bad starter where his own reminiscences were concerned. “That about the monkey-man and the fellow who looked like Apollo,” answered Good. “I dreamt about it all night, and that I rescued the lady—a dark girl dressed in blue—and that just as I was about to receive a well-earned kiss of thanks, she changed her mind and turned into stone.” “Which is just what she would have done if she had any sense in her head and you were concerned, Good,” said Allan severely, adding, “Perhaps it was your dream that made you shoot more vilely than usual to-day. I saw you miss eight cock pheasants in succession at that last corner.”