"Ultimately, it appears, in order to be rid of this girl and her evil eye,
they sold her to the doctors of a dwarf people, who lived far away in a
forest and worshipped trees, since when nothing more has been heard of
her. But according to them the curse stopped behind.

"If I can find out anything more of this curious story I will let you
know, but I doubt if I shall be able to do so. Although fifteen years or
so have passed since Dingaan's death in 1840 the Kaffirs are very shy of
talking about this poor lady, and, I think, only did so to me because I am
neither an official nor a missionary, but one whom they look upon as a
friend because I have doctored so many of them. When I asked the Indunas
about her at first they pretended total ignorance, but on my pressing the
question, one of them said that 'all that tale was unlucky and "went
beyond" with Mopo.' Now Mopo, as I think I wrote to you, was the man who
stabbed King Chaka, Dingaan's brother. He is supposed to have been mixed
up in the death of Dingaan also, and to be dead himself. At any rate he
vanished away after Panda came to the throne."_



CHAPTER I

THE GIRL


The afternoon was intensely, terribly hot. Looked at from the high ground
where they were encamped above the river, the sea, a mile or two to her
right--for this was the coast of Pondo-land--to little Rachel Dove staring
at it with sad eyes, seemed an illimitable sheet of stagnant oil. Yet