"Come, fire, and lick up Indaba-zimbi!
"Hear me, Storm Devil, and lick Indaba-zimbi with your red tongue!
"Spit on him with your rain!
"Whirl him away in your breath!
"Make him as nothing--melt the marrow in his bones!
"Run into his heart and burn away the lies!
"Show all the people who is the true Witch Finder!
"Let me not be put to shame in the eyes of this white man!"
Thus he spoke, or rather chanted, and all the while rubbed his broad
chest--for he was a very fine man--with some filthy compound of medicine
or _mouti_.
After a while, getting tired of his song, I walked across the
iron-stone, to where Indaba-zimbi sat by his fire. He was not chanting
at all, but his performance was much more impressive. It consisted in
staring at the eastern sky, which was perfectly clear of cloud, and
every now and again beckoning at it with his finger, then turning round
to point with the assegai towards his rival. For a while I looked at him
in silence. He was a curious wizened man, apparently over fifty years
of age, with thin hands that looked as tough as wire.
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