This dread silence of the crowd was only broken by an occasional bitter laugh or wrathful exclamation from the wizard, who, having some days before been summoned by Umlala to prescribe for some trifling ailment, had taken care that the medicine given, a preparation of herbs, should not remedy the disease, but increase it. Umlala, however, had almost forgotten his ailment in his exultation over the cattle brought him by his foraging party. The wizard was determined on reminding him of it, and came to tell him now who had bewitched him, first as regarded his health, and secondly his judgment, which Amani pronounced at fault, from Umlala having permitted Doda to attend the white man on a journey. "Whither was the white man going? Did Umlala know his purpose? The white man's face was white, but his heart was black, and what but a spy could be the boy left behind?" Gray, on hearing an unusual stir, crept from his domicile, which bordered a ravine, and, plunging into a tangled copse, made his way unnoticed to a little tuft of orange-trees on the site of an old missionary station, whence he determined on reconnoitring what was going on. He had a just horror of Amani as an impostor, but he had no conception of the power he derived from his misdirected abilities, for Amani was one of the shrewdest of his race, and possessed an evil influence over his chief. Gray could see the whole face of the plain, and every figure in the semicircle spread out at his feet. He scanned it rapidly and uneasily, and, to his infinite dismay, discovered Amayeka. The grove in which he sat was one of the lovers' trysting-places; and, though the early morning was not a safe time for meeting, he had hoped to find her there, or within a short distance from it. An undefinable feeling of horror stole over him; but he had sufficient presence of mind to pause and watch the proceedings. Whatever might be the result, he mourned his wretched position, not entirely for his own sake--indeed at this moment self was farthest from his thoughts. But what could this strange meeting portend? Mischief, he knew; but who was to be the victim? Naturally his alarm was connected with the unhappy girl, who had been his only friend of late. Her father was absent, her mother had years before vanished from the face of the earth, that is, perished in the bush, whither she had been carried in severe sickness, and left there to die or be devoured by the wild beasts roaming there,-- it was never ascertained which. After a lapse of time, some scattered bones were found, but these were left to whiten and fall to dust. Gray climbed the tallest orange-tree, and looked down from its clustering boughs. He could not distinguish Amayeka's features, but her head drooped, her arms hung listlessly down, and at her side, in the begging attitude so peculiar to these tiny brutes, sat the meercat, as if beseeching pity.