"Oh, skittles about luck. It's the risk I take count of, and that only. The fact is, Young, you old up-country men are as superstitious as sailors," returned Blachland, with that strange, eager restlessness which now and then, and generally unexpectedly, obtruded to give the lie to his ordinarily calm and immobile demeanour. "I'll risk the _majara_--luck doesn't count,--and sooner or later I'll explore Umzilikazi's grave." Sybrandt was conscious of what, in a less self-contained man, would have been an obvious start at these words. A dark form had glided silently in among them all. It was only one of their camp servants, but--a native of the country. What if he had heard--had understood? He knew some English too! "Even if you got through the pickets of _majara_, Blachland," struck in Sybrandt, when this man had retired; "you'd have another factor to reckon with. The King's Snake." "Eh?" "The King's Snake." Blachland spluttered. "See here, Sybrandt," he said. "Are you seriously trying to fill me up? Me, mind? No, it can't be." "Well, the Matabele say there's a big snake mounting guard over Umzilikazi's remains. It is the King's spirit which has passed into the snake. That is why the snake comes in such a lot when they go periodically and give the _sibonga_ at his grave." "And you believe that?" "They say so." "What sort of a snake is it?" "A black _imamba_. Mind you, I've never seen it." "Don't you be so cocksure about everything, Blachland," grunted Pemberton, who was fast dropping asleep. "Luck or no luck, there's mighty rum things happen you can't explain, nor scare up any sort of reason for." "Won't do--no, not for half a minute," returned the other, briskly and decisively. "You can explain everything; and as for luck, and all that sort of thing--why, it's only fit for old women, and the lower orders." Pemberton grunted again, and more sleepily still. His pipe at that moment fell out of his mouth, and he lurched over, fast asleep. Sybrandt, too, was nodding, but through his drowsiness he noticed that the native, a low-class Matabele, Hlangulu by name, was moving about, as though trying to sidle up near enough to catch some of the conversation. He was drowsy, however, and soon dropped off. Blachland, sitting there, felt anything but inclined for sleep. This new idea had caught on to his mind with a powerful hold. It was full of risk, and the object to be attained _nil_. The snake story he dismissed as sheer savage legend, childish and poor even as such. The luck theory, propounded by Pemberton, smacked of the turnip-fed lore of the average chaw-bacon in rural England. No, the risk lay in the picket-guard. That, to his mind, constituted the real peril, and the only one. It, however, might be avoided; and, the more he thought about it, the more resolved was Hilary Blachland to penetrate the forbidden recess, to explore the tomb of the warrior King, and that at any risk.