The People of the Mist

h had given him, which in truth formed all his library, and read the funeral service over the grave, ending it by the glare of the lightning flashes. Then he

ever in your way. I would tell you a story and ask you something. At the least," h

e squatted down on the further side of the lantern like som

w lean as trek oxen at the end of winter. Then we said to each other, 'Here we have no longer any home, the shame of poverty has come upon us, we are broken vessels, empty men of no account; also we are chiefs by blood, and here we cannot let ourselves out to labour like t

and goes, but the blood is always the blood. Why did you not gather an impi

could give us back our home, and we had none left. Therefore we swore an oath together, the dead Baas and I, that we would journey to this

rn it otherwise, and there would have been a ringing of

e have travelled to and fro, mixing with many peoples, learning many tongues, and what have we

people are more simple and better. A red spear is br

orn to win the wealth or die. But last nig

it, is hid in those rocks that are far too heavy to carry, and who may charm gold out of the rock? Not all the wizards in Z

ld, that I should win it by the help of a woman, and he bade me wait here a while after he was dead. Say now, Otter, you

on, "that the words of the dead uttered on the edge of death shall come true. He promised that you should win the wealth: you will win it by this way or that, and the great

tal spot. They did not speak, though each of them was speaking after his own fashion, and both had cause for thought. They had been hunting all day, but killed nothin

mind also; he felt his brother's loss more acutely now than on the day he buried him. Moreover, for the first time he suffered from symptoms of the deadly fever which had carried off his three compani

He rehearsed the whole scene in his mind again and yet again until it became a reality to him. He saw his own last struggle for life and Otter watching it. He saw the dwarf bearing him in his great arms to a lonely grave, there to cover him with

ch had begun to take the place of educated reason with him-spoke in another voice. He had gone back in the scale of life, he had grown primitive; his mind was as the mind of a Norseman or of an Aztec. It did not seem wonderful to him th

errors, and her hopes. But let him escape from out his cities and the fellowship of his kind, let him be alone with her for a while, and where is his supremacy? He sinks back on to her breast again and is lost there as in time to be all his labours shall be lost. The grass

ty pipe between his teeth. Their tobacco was done, and yet he drew

at length, "you

ed, "that is, p

who watch. The fever has touched you with his finger, by-an

Otter, go

you think too much and you have nothing to do, that is w

Ant-bear holes m

d wait no more than that you should talk s

was silence

hing to smoke, and only the fever to look forward to, expecting we know not what. But what does it matter? Fools and wise men all come to one e

were there, standing on the hither edge of a ravine. A cloud had hidden the face of t

came to their ears, or rather a sound which, b

ards the shadows on the further side of th

"unless it be a ghost, or the v

the moonlight shone out brilliantly, and they saw who it was that cried aloud in this desolate place. For there, not twenty paces from them, on the ot

er face was hidden in her bony hands. Leonard looked at her curiously. She was past middle age, but he could see that once she had been handsome, and, for a native, very light in colour. Her hair was grizzled and crisp rather t

the Sisutu dialect, "what ail

ed upon her lips, and her sunken cheeks, clear-cut features, and sullen black eyes became as those of one who is petrified with terror. So strange was her aspect indeed that the dwarf and his

given in marriage, and from whom I fled when I was young? Do I see thee in the flesh, Lord of the night, King of blood a

tter, "that we have to

, "I am not mad, though madnes

rf with irritation; "cease to speak folly, and tell th

se you, having put on the flesh, to avow yourself before me. At the least be it as you will. If you are not Ja

" asked Leon

d weariness have turned my brain, and I spoke wandering words. Forget them and gi

elcome to it. Follow me, mother," and he led the way across

e hungry for long, greedily and yet with effort. When she had

d, are you also

ered grimly,

ster then-this

. I have no master, mother; I have a

an, "or the best, for she laughs ever behin

mily; then added in another tone, "What is your errand, mother? How

one whom I love and who is in sore dis

n," said

hed down before him