.

MAMEENA.
For a while I contemplated the roof and sides of the hut by the light which entered it through the smoke-vent and the door-hole, wondering whose it might be and how I came there.
Then I tried to sit up, and instantly was seized with agony in the region of the ribs, which I found were bound about with broad strips of soft tanned hide.

Clearly they, or some of them, were broken.
What had broken them?
I asked myself, and in a flash everything came back to me.

So I had escaped with my life, as the old dwarf, "Opener-of-Roads," had told me that I should.

Certainly he was an excellent prophet; and if he spoke truth in this matter, why not in others?
What was I to make of it all?
How could a black savage, however ancient, foresee the future?
By induction from the past, I supposed; and yet what amount of induction would suffice to show him the details of a forthcoming accident that was to happen to me through the agency of a wild beast with a peculiarly shaped horn?
I gave it up, as before and since that day I have found it necessary to do in the case of many other events in life.