"What medicines have you, White-man?" asked Menzi.

"None, at least not here. Faith is my medicine."

Dorcas looked at Tabitha. She was turning blue and her teeth were
chattering.

"Let the man do his best," she said to Thomas. "There is no other hope."

"He shan't touch her," replied her husband obstinately.

Then Dorcas fired up, meek-natured though she was and accustomed though
she was to obey her husband's will.

"I say that he shall," she cried. "I know what he can do. Don't you
remember the goat? I will not see my child die as a sacrifice to your
pride."

"I have made up my mind," answered Thomas. "If she dies it is so
decreed, and the spells and filth of a heathen cannot save her."

Dorcas tried to thrust him aside with her feeble strength, but big and
burly, he stood in the path like a rock, blocking the way, with the
stone entrance walls of the little pleasure-house on either side of him.

Suddenly the old Zulu, Menzi, became rather terrible; he drew himself
up; he seemed to swell in size; his thin face grew set and fierce.

"Out of the path, White-man!" he said, "or by Chaka's head I will kill
you," and from somewhere he produced a long, thin-bladed knife of native