“O Lord of the Spirits, you have called me from the land of Spirits to make reply as to two matters which have not yet happened upon the earth.  These replies I will give but no others, since the mortal strength that I have borrowed returns whence it came.  The first matter is, if there be war between the White and Black, what will happen in that war?  I see a plain ringed round with hills and on it a strange-shaped mount.  I see a great battle; I see the white men go down like corn before a tempest; I see the spears of the impis redden; I see the white soldiers lie like leaves cut from a tree by frost.  They are dead, all dead, save a handful that have fled away.  I hear the ingoma of victory sung here at Ulundi.  It is finished.

“The second matter is—­what shall chance to the king?  I see him tossed on the Black Water; I see him in a land full of houses, talking with a royal woman and her councillors.  There, too, he conquers, for they offer him tribute of many gifts.  I see him here, back here in Zululand, and hear him greeted with the royal salute.  Last of all I see him dead, as men must die, and hear the voice of Zikali and the mourning of the women of his house.  It is finished.  Farewell, King Cetewayo, I pass to tell Panda, your father, how it fares with you.  When last we parted did I not prophesy to you that we should meet again at the bottom of a gulf?  Was it this gulf, think you, or another?  One day you shall learn.  Farewell, or fare ill, as it may happen!”

Once more the smoke spread out like a fan.  When it thinned and drew together again, the Shape was gone.

Now I thought that the Zulus would be so impressed by this very queer exhibition, that they would seek no more supernatural guidance, but make up their minds for war at once.  This, however, was just what they did not do.  As it happened, among the assembled chiefs, was one who himself had a great repute as a witch-doctor, and therefore burned with jealousy of Zikali who appeared to be able to do things that he had never even attempted.  This man leapt up and declared that all which they had seemed to hear and see was but cunning trickery, carried out after long preparation by Zikali and his confederates.  The voices, he said, came from persons placed in certain spots, or sometimes were produced by Zikali himself.  As for the vision, it was not that of a spirit but of a real woman, in proof of which he called attention to certain anatomical details of the figure.  Finally, with much sense, he pointed out that the Council would be mad to come to any decision upon such evidence, or to give faith to prophecies, whereof the truth or falsity could only be known in the future.

Now a fierce debate broke out, the war party maintaining that the manifestations were genuine, the peace party that they were a fraud.  In the end, as neither side would give way and as Zikali, when appealed to, sat silent as a stone, refusing any explanation, the king said—­