"But never mind this jackal
in a lion's hide; tell me your story, Noie, if you will, only speak low,
for this tent is thin."
"Lady," said the girl, "you who were born white in body and in spirit,
hear me. I am but half a Zulu. My father who died yesterday in the flesh,
departing back to the world of ghosts, was of another people who live far
to the north, a small people but a strong. They live among the trees, they
worship trees; they die when their tree dies; they are dealers in dreams;
they are the companions of ghosts, little men before whom the tribes
tremble; who hate the sun, and dwell in the deep of the forest. Myself I
do not know them; I have never seen them, but my father told me these
things, and others that I may not repeat. When he was a young man my
father fled from his people."
"Why?" asked Rachel, for the girl paused.
"Lady, I do not know; I think it was because he would have been their
priest, or one of their priests, and he feared I think that he had seen a
woman, a slave to them, whom therefore he might not marry. I think that
woman was my mother. So he fled from them--with her, and came to live
among the Zulus. He was a great doctor there in Chaka's time, not one of
the _Abangomas_, not one of the 'Smellers-out-of-witches,' not a
'Bringer-down-to-death,' for like all his race he hated bloodshed.
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