"Now, I listened, answering nothing; but when all had done, I asked to see the club which should be given to him who dared to face the Amatongo, the spirits who lived in the forest upon the Ghost Mountain.
Then the old woman rose, and creeping on her hands went into the hut.
Presently she returned again, dragging the great club after her.
"Look at it, stranger! look at it! Was there ever such a club?" And Galazi held it up before the eyes of Umslopogaas.
In truth, my father, that was a club, for I, Mopo, saw it in after days. It was great and knotty, black as iron that had been smoked in the fire, and shod with metal that was worn smooth with smiting.
"I looked at it," went on Galazi, "and I tell you, stranger, a great desire came into my heart to possess it.
"'How is this club named?' I asked of the old woman.
"'It is named Watcher of the Fords,' she answered, 'and it has not watched in vain. Five men have held that club in war and a hundred-and-seventy-three have given up their lives beneath its strokes. He who held it last slew twenty before he was slain himself, for this fortune goes with the club--that he who owns it shall die holding it, but in a noble fashion. There is but one other weapon to match with it in Zululand, and that is the great axe of Jikiza, the chief of the People of the Axe, who dwells in the kraal yonder; the ancient horn-hafted Imbubuzi, the Groan-Maker, that brings victory. Were axe, Groan-Maker, and club, Watcher of the Fords, side by side, there are no thirty men in Zululand who could stand before them. I have said.
Choose!' And the aged woman watched me cunningly through her horny eyes.
"'She speaks truly now,' said one of those who stood near. 'Let the club be, young man: he who owns it smites great blows indeed, but in the end he dies by the assegai. None dare own the Watcher of the Fords.'
"'A good death and a swift!' I answered. And pondered a time, while still the old woman watched me through her horny eyes. At length she rose, 'La!, la!' she said, 'the Watcher is not for this one. This is but a child, I must seek me a man, I must seek me a man!'
"'Not so fast, old wife,' I said. 'Will you lend me this club to hold in my hand while I go to find the bones of your son and to snatch them from the people of the ghosts?'
"'Lend you the Watcher, boy? Nay, nay! I should see little of you again or of the good club either.'
"'I am no thief,' I answered. 'If the ghosts kill me, you will see me no more, or the club either; but if I live I will bring you back the bones, or, if I do not find them, I will render the Watcher into your hands again. At the least I say that if you will not lend me the club, then I will not go into the haunted place.'
"'Boy, your eyes are honest,' she said, still peering at me. 'Take the Watcher, go seek the bones. If you die, let the club be lost with you;if you fail, bring it back to me; but if you win the bones, then it is yours, and it shall bring you glory and you shall die a man's death at last holding him aloft among the dead.'
"So on the morrow at dawn I took the club Watcher in my hand and a little dancing shield, and made ready to start. The old woman blessed me and bade me farewell, but the other people of the kraal mocked, saying: 'A little man for so big a club! Beware, little man, lest the ghosts use the club on you!' So they spoke, but one girl in the kraal --she is a granddaughter of the old woman--led me aside, praying me not to go, for the forest on the Ghost Mountain had an evil name: none dared walk there, since it was certainly full of spirits, who howled like wolves. I thanked the girl, but to the others I said nothing, only I asked of the path to the Ghost Mountain.
"Now stranger, if you have strength, come to the mouth of the cave and look out, for the moon is bright."So Umslopogaas rose and crept through the narrow mouth of the cave.
There, above him, a great grey peak towered high into the air, shaped like a seated woman, her chin resting upon her breast, the place where the cave was being, as it were, on the lap of the woman. Below this place the rock sloped sharply, and was clothed with little bushes.
Lower down yet was a forest, great and dense, that stretched to the top of a cliff, and at the foot of the cliff, beyond the waters of the river, lay the wide plains of Zululand.