The man saluted again and went without a word.

When he had gone the dwarf drew from the bag a bundle of twisted roots,
also some pebbles, from which he selected two, one white and the other
black.

"Into this stone," he said, holding up the white pebble so that the
light from the fire shone on it--since, save for the lingering red glow,
it was now growing dark--"into this stone I am about to draw your
spirit, O Macumazana; and into this one"--and he held up the black
pebble--"yours, O Son of Matiwane. Why do you look frightened, O brave
White Man, who keep saying in your heart, 'He is nothing but an ugly old
Kafir cheat'? If I am a cheat, why do you look frightened? Is your
spirit already in your throat, and does it choke you, as this little
stone might do if you tried to swallow it?" and he burst into one of his
great, uncanny laughs.

I tried to protest that I was not in the least frightened, but failed,
for, in fact, I suppose my nerves were acted on by his suggestion, and I
did feel exactly as though that stone were in my throat, only coming
upwards, not going downwards. "Hysteria," thought I to myself, "the
result of being overtired," and as I could not speak, sat still as
though I treated his gibes with silent contempt.

"Now," went on the dwarf, "perhaps I shall seem to die; and if so do not
touch me lest you should really die. Wait till I wake up again and tell
you what your spirits have told me. Or if I do not wake up--for a time
must come when I shall go on sleeping--well--for as long as I have
lived--after the fires are quite out, not before, lay your hands upon my