"Now, did not I tell you?" said Gondocori, as we left the room. "Oh, we are going on swimmingly; and it is all my doing. I do believe that if I had not protested that you were the greatest medicine-man in the world, and had come expressly to cure her, she would have had you roasted or ripped up by the man-killer or turned adrift in the desert, or something equally diabolical. Your fate is in your own hands now. If you fail to make good your promises, it will be out of my power to help you. You heard how she treated your predecessor." CHAPTER XXIII. YOU ARE THE MAN. Early next morning I sent Gahra secretly up to the lake on the bastion for a jar of chalybeate water, which, after being colored with red earth and flavored with wild garlic, was nauseous enough to satisfy the most exacting of physic swallowers. Then the negro sacrificed a cock in the royal presence, and performed an incantation in the most approved African fashion, and we made the creature's claws and comb into an amulet, which I requested the queen to hang round her neck. This done, I gave my instructions, assuring her that if she failed in any particular to observe them my efforts would be vain, and her cure impossible. She was to drink nothing but water and physic (of the latter very little), eat animal food only once a day, and that sparingly, and walk two hours every morning; and finding that she could ride on horseback (like a man), though she had lately abandoned the exercise, I told her to ride two hours every evening. I also laid down other rules, purposely making them onerous and hard to be observed, partly because I knew that a strict regimen was necessary for her recovery, partly to leave myself a loop-hole, in the event of her not recovering, for I felt pretty sure that she would not do all that I had bidden her, and if she came short in any one thing I should have an excuse ready to my hand. But to my surprise she did not come short. For Mamcuna to give up her cider and her flesh pots, and, flabby and fat as she was, to walk and ride four hours every day, must have been very hard, yet she conformed to regulations with rare resolution and self-denial. As a natural consequence she soon began to mend, at first slowly and almost imperceptibly, afterward rapidly and visibly, as much to my satisfaction as hers; for if my treatment had failed, I could not have said that the fault was hers. Meanwhile I was picking up information about her people, and acquiring a knowledge of their language, and as I was continually hearing it spoken I was soon able to make myself understood.