wonder, only they walked backward before me, clinging each to each and

saying nothing. I too came on silently, till at length I reached the

kraal, and before its gates sat the old woman basking in the sun of

the afternoon. Presently she looked up and cried:--

"'What ails you, people of my house, that you walk backwards like men

bewitched, and who is that tall and deathly man who comes toward you?'

"But still they drew on backward, saying no word, the little children

clinging to the women, the women clinging to the men, till they had