"Not one living soul. Why have I told you? Perhaps I had my reasons: perhaps the sight of you two wandering as I have wandered. It is immaterial. My work here is nearly done. This rising which has been so disastrous to your countrymen and mine--how disastrous you have yet to learn--my hand has fostered and fed. I have foreseen the opportunity. I waited for it patiently, and when it came I seized it. But there will be more work in other parts, and, mark me, John Ames, my unseen hand will again be there to strike." "Tell me one thing more. If it was through your influence the people spared us, how is it they tried to kill me that time I was leaving Madula, when they drove me over the _dwala_, and I woke up to find myself here? That was a narrow squeak, I can tell you." "It was indeed, John Ames. But that was accidental, and was contrary to my orders." "Contrary to your orders? But,"--sitting up, with a stare of blank amazement--"but--who are you?" "I am Umlimo." "What! _You_ Umlimo? It cannot be. I have always held Umlimo to be a sort of fraudulent abstraction, engineered by innyangas like Shiminya and others. _You_ the Umlimo?" But to the startled eyes of the questioner the form of the questioned seemed to grow larger, taller, like a presence filling the whole place. The old relentless look of implacable hate transformed the features, and the deep eyes glowed, while from the scarcely opened lips boomed forth as in deep thunder-tones-- "I am Umlimo." A mist filled the place. The figure with its background of rock-wall seemed to lose form. A sudden stupor seized upon the brain of John Ames, as though the whole atmosphere were pervaded by a strong narcotic. Then he knew no more. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. IN STATE OF SIEGE. There can be no doubt but that, during the period of the rising, and especially during the earlier half of the same, the township of Bulawayo was a very uncomfortable place indeed.