He was a great child with large black eyes like the eyes of Chaka the king; and Unandi, too, looked at me.

"Where is it ?" she whispered.
I loosed the mat and drew the dead child from the medicines, glancing round fearfully as I did so.
"Give me the living babe," I whispered back.
They gave it to me and I took of a drug that I knew and rubbed it on the tongue of the child.

Now this drug has the power to make the tongue it touches dumb for awhile.

Then I wrapped up the child in my medicines and again bound the mat about the bundle.

But round the throat of the still-born babe I tied a string of fibre as though I had strangled it, and wrapped it loosely in a piece of matting.
Now for the first time I spoke to Baleka: "Woman," I said, "and thou also, Mother of the Heavens, I have done your wish, but know that before all is finished this deed shall bring about the death of many.