"_Kwa 'Zinyoka_! `The Home of the Serpents!'" Well he remembered the jeering, but ominous, words of the hideous witch-doctress at the time his unfortunate cousin was being dragged away insensible under the directions of his implacable foe, Hlangani. "_He will wake. But he will never be seen again_." And now this man's testimony seemed to bear out her words. "What is this `Home of the Serpents,' Xalasa?" he said. "_Au_!" returned the Kafir, after a thoughtful pause, and speaking in a low and apprehensive tone as a timid person in a haunted room might talk of ghosts. "It is a fearsome place. None who go there ever return-- none--no, not one," he added, shaking his head. "But they say your magic is great, Ixeshane. It may be that you will find your brother alive. The war is nearly over now, but the war leaves every man poor. I have lost all I possessed. When you find your brother you will perhaps think Xalasa is a poor man, and I have too many cattle in my kraal. I will send four or five cows to the man who told me my brother was alive." In his heart of hearts Eustace thought how willingly he would send him a hundred for precisely the opposite intelligence. "Where is `The Home of the Serpents'?" he said. "Where? Who knows? None save Ngcenika, who talks with the spirits. None save Hlangani, who rejoices in his revenge as he sees his enemy there, even the man who struck him, and drew the blood of the Great Chief's herald. Who knows? Not I. Those who go there never return," he added impressively, conveying the idea that in his particular instance "ignorance is bliss." Eustace's first instinct was one of relief. If no one knew where the place was, clearly no one could tell. Then it struck him that this rather tended to complicate matters than to simplify them. There had been quite enough insinuated as to himself, and though guiltless as to his cousin's fate, yet once it got wind that the unfortunate man was probably alive somewhere, it would devolve upon himself to leave no stone unturned until that probability should become a certainty. Public opinion would demand that much, and he knew the world far too well to make the blunder of treating public opinion, in a matter of this kind, as a negligeable quantity. "But if you don't know where the place is, Xalasa, how am I to find it?" he said at length. "I would give much to the man who would guide me to it. Think! Is there no man you know of who could do so?" But the Kafir shook his head. "There is none!" he said. "None save Ngcenika. _Whau_, Ixeshane! Is not thy magic as powerful as hers? Will it not aid thee to find it? Now I must go. Where the `Home of the Serpents' is, thy brother is there. That is all I can tell thee."