After it was finished the others went to bed but, with the still unconscious Hans for my only companion, I sat for a while smoking by the fire, for on this high tableland the air was chilly.

I felt that as yet I could not sleep; if for no other reason because of the noise that the Mazitu were making in the town, I suppose in celebration of the execution of the terrible witch-doctors and the return of Dogeetah.
Suddenly Hans awoke, and sitting up, stared at me through the bright flame which I had recently fed with dry wood.
"Baas," he said in a hollow voice, "there you are, here I am, and there is the fire which never goes out, a very good fire.

But, Baas, why are we not inside of it as your father the Predikant promised, instead of outside here in the cold ?" "Because you are still in the world, you old fool, and not where you deserve to be," I answered.

"Because Mavovo's Snake was a snake with a true tongue after all, and Dogeetah came as it foretold.

Because we are all alive and well, and it is Imbozwi with his spawn who are dead upon the posts.