The prayer of the Bee notwithstanding, Philip Hadden slept ill that night.  He felt in the best of health, and his conscience was not troubling him more than usual, but rest he could not.  Whenever he closed his eyes, his mind conjured up a picture of the grim witch-doctoress, so strangely named the Bee, and the sound of her evil-omened words as he had heard them that afternoon.  He was neither a superstitious nor a timid man, and any supernatural beliefs that might linger in his mind were, to say the least of it, dormant.  But do what he might, he could not shake off a certain eerie sensation of fear, lest there should be some grains of truth in the prophesyings of this hag.  What if it were a fact that he was near his death, and that the heart which beat so strongly in his breast must soon be still for ever—­no, he would not think of it.  This gloomy place, and the dreadful sight which he saw that day, had upset his nerves.  The domestic customs of these Zulus were not pleasant, and for his part he was determined to be clear of them so soon as he was able to escape the country.

In fact, if he could in any way manage it, it was his intention to make a dash for the border on the following night.  To do this with a good prospect of success, however, it was necessary that he should kill a buffalo, or some other head of game.  Then, as he knew well, the hunters with him would feast upon meat until they could scarcely stir, and that would be his opportunity.  Nahoon, however, might not succumb to this temptation; therefore he must trust to luck to be rid of him.  If it came to the worst, he could put a bullet through him, which he considered he would be justified in doing, seeing that in reality the man was his jailor.  Should this necessity arise, he felt indeed that he could face it without undue compunction, for in truth he disliked Nahoon; at times he even hated him.  Their natures were antagonistic, and he knew that the great Zulu distrusted and looked down upon him, and to be looked down upon by a savage “nigger” was more than his pride could stomach.

At the first break of dawn Hadden rose and roused his escort, who were still stretched in sleep around the dying fire, each man wrapped in his kaross or blanket.  Nahoon stood up and shook himself, looking gigantic in the shadows of the morning.

“What is your will, Umlungu (white man), that you are up before the sun?”

“My will, Muntumpofu (yellow man), is to hunt buffalo,” answered Hadden coolly.  It irritated him that this savage should give him no title of any sort.

“Your pardon,” said the Zulu reading his thoughts, “but I cannot call you Inkoos because you are not my chief, or any man’s; still if the title ‘white man’ offends you, we will give you a name.”

“As you wish,” answered Hadden briefly.

Accordingly they gave him a name, Inhlizin-mgama, by which he was known among them thereafter, but Hadden was not best pleased when he found that the meaning of those soft-sounding syllables was “Black Heart.”  That was how the inyanga had addressed him—­only she used different words.