but you don't quite know everything. There are men in the world who can
make people believe they see things which they do not see. Let us be
going while we may, for when those Umtetwas have got over their fright,
they will come back to loot the waggons, and then perhaps _they_ will
begin asking questions that I can't answer."

And here I may as well state that I never got any further information on
this matter from old Indaba-zimbi. But I have my theory, and here it is
for whatever it may be worth. I believe that Indaba-zimbi _mesmerized_
the whole crowd of onlookers, myself included, making them believe that
they saw the assegai in my heart, and the blood upon the blade. The
reader may smile and say, "Impossible;" but I would ask him how
the Indian jugglers do their tricks unless it is by mesmerism. The
spectators _seem_ to see the boy go under the basket and there pierced
with daggers, they _seem_ to see women in a trance supported in mid-air
upon the point of a single sword. In themselves these things are not
possible, they violate the laws of nature, as those laws are known to
us, and therefore must surely be illusion. And so through the glamour
thrown upon them by Indaba-zimbi's will, that Zulu Impi seemed to see me
transfixed with an assegai which never touched me. At least, that is my
theory; if any one has a better, let him adopt it. The explanation lies
between illusion and magic of a most imposing character, and I prefer to
accept the first alternative.



CHAPTER VI

STELLA