“You whispered in her ear?” I said.  “How could you whisper in her ear?”

“Bah!  Macumazahn.  How could I seem to die and go rotten before your eyes?  You don’t know, do you?  Well, I will tell you one thing.  I had to die to pass the doors of space, as you call them.  I had to draw all the healthy strength and life from my body in order to gather power to speak with the Star.  It was a dangerous business, Macumazahn, for if I had let things go a little further they must have stopped so, and there would have been an end of Indaba-zimbi.  Ah, you white men, you know so much that you think you know everything.  But you don’t!  You are always staring at the clouds and can’t see the things that lie at your feet.  You hardly believe me now, do you, Macumazahn?  Well, I will show you.  Have you anything on you that the Star has touched or worn?”

I thought for a moment, and said that I had a lock of her hair in my pocket-book.  He told me to give it him.  I did so.  Going to the fire, he lit the lock of hair in the flame, and let it burn to ashes, which he caught in his left hand.  These ashes he mixed up in a paste with the juice of one of the leaves of the plant I have spoken of.

“Now, Macumazahn, shut your eyes,” he said.

I did so, and he rubbed his paste on to my eyelids.  At first it burnt me, then my head swam strangely.  Presently this effect passed off, and my brain was perfectly clear again, but I could not feel the ground with my feet.  Indaba-zimbi led me to the side of the stream.  Beneath us was a pool of beautifully clear water.

“Look into the pool, Macumazahn,” said Indaba-zimbi, and his voice sounded hollow and far away in my ears.

I looked.  The water grew dark; it cleared, and in it was a picture.  I saw a cave with a fire burning in it.  Against the wall of the cave rested Stella.  Her dress was torn almost off her, she looked dreadfully pale and weary, and her eyelids were red as though with weeping.  But she slept, and I could almost think that I saw her lips shape my name in her sleep.  Close to her, her head upon Stella’s breast, was little Tota; she had a skin thrown over her to keep out the night cold.  The child was awake, and appeared to be moaning with fear.  By the fire, and in such a position that the light fell full upon her face, and engaged in cooking something in a rough pot shaped from wood, sat the Baboon-woman, Hendrika.  She was clothed in baboon skins, and her face had been rubbed with some dark stain, which was, however, wearing off it.  In the intervals of her cooking she would turn on Stella her wild eyes, in which glared visible madness, with an expression of tenderness that amounted to worship.  Then she would stare at the child and gnash her teeth as though with hate.  Clearly she was jealous of it.  Round the entrance arch of the cave peeped and peered the heads of many baboons.  Presently Hendrika made a sign to one of them; apparently she did not speak, or rather grunt, in order not to wake Stella.  The brute hopped forward, and she gave it a second rude wooden pot which was lying by her.  It took it and went.  The last thing that I saw, as the vision slowly vanished from the pool, was the dim shadow of the baboon returning with the pot full of water.