In some curious way, of which I did not at first learn the details, while undergoing his novitiate as a doctor or magician, this man had been seized by a rival tribe, the Abanda, and ultimately sold as a slave to an Arab trader, one Hassan, who brought him down to the neighbourhood of the great lake.

Here also, according to his own story, it seemed that one night this Kaneke succeeded in murdering Hassan.

“I crept on him in the night. I got him by the throat. I choked the life out of him,” he said, twitching his big hands, “and as he died I whispered in his ear of all the cruel things he had done to me. He made signs to me, praying for mercy, but I went on till I had killed him, whispering to him all the while. When he was dead I took his body and threw it out into the bush, having first stripped him. There a lion found it and bore it away, for in the morning it was gone. Then, Macumazahn” (that is the native name by which I, Allan Quatermain, am known in Africa, and which had come with me to these parts), “I played a great game, such as you might have done, O Watcher-by-Night. I returned to the tent of Hassan and sat there thinking.

“I heard the lion, or lions come, for I think there was more than one of them, as I was sure that they would come who had called them by a charm, and guessed that they had eaten or carried away Hassan the evil. When all was quiet I dressed myself in the robes of Hassan. I found his gun, which on the journey he had taught me to use, that I might shoot the slaves who could travel no farther for him; his pistol also, and saw that they were loaded. Then I sat myself upon his stool and waited for the light.

“At the dawn one of his women crept into the tent to visit him. I seized her. She stared at me, saying:

“’You are not my master. You are not Hassan.’

“I answered, ‘I am your master. I am Hassan, whose face the spirits have changed in the night.’

“She opened her mouth to cry out. I said:

“’Woman, if you try to scream, I will kill you. If you are quiet I will take you. Look on me. I am young. Hassan was old. I am a finer man, you will be happier with me. Choose now. Will you die, or live?’

“’I will live,’ she said, she who was no fool.

“’Then I am Hassan, am I not?’ I asked.

“’Yes,’ she said, ‘you are Hassan and my lord. I am sure of it now.’

“For I tell you, that woman had wit, Macumazahn, and I was sorry when, two years afterwards, she died.

“’Good,’ I said. ‘Now, when the servants of Hassan come you will swear that I am he and no other, remembering that if you do not swear you die.’

“’I will swear,’ she answered.

“Presently the headman of Hassan came, a big fat fellow who was half an Arab, to bring him his morning drink. I took it and drank. The light of the rising sun struck into the tent. He saw and started back.

“’You are not Hassan,’ he said. ‘You are the slave Kaneke, whom we bought.’

“’I am Hassan,’ I answered. ‘Ask my wife here, whom you know, if I am not Hassan.