Here old Quatermain broke off suddenly.

"Look here, you fellows," he said, "I can't bear to go on with this part
of the story, because I never could stand either seeing or talking of
the sufferings of children. You can guess what that devil did, and what
the poor mother was forced to witness. Would you believe it, she told
me the tale without a tremor, in the most matter-of-fact way. Only I
noticed that her eyelid quivered all the time.

"'Well,' I said, as unconcernedly as though I had been talking of the
death of a lamb, though inwardly I was sick with horror and boiling
with rage, 'and what do you mean to do about the matter, Maiwa, wife of
Wambe?'

"'I mean to do this, white man,' she answered, drawing herself up to her
full height, and speaking in tones as hard as steel and cold as ice--'I
mean to work, and work, and work, to bring this to pass, and to bring
that to pass, until at length it comes to pass that with these living
eyes I behold Wambe dying the death that he gave to his child and my
child.'

"'Well said,' I answered.

"'Ay, well said, Macumazahn, well said, and not easily forgotten. Who
could forget, oh, who could forget? See where this dead hand rests
against my side; so once it rested when alive. And now, though it is
dead, now every night it creeps from its nest and strokes my hair and
clasps my fingers in its tiny palm. Every night it does this, fearing