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. Indeed,
the question is one that I often have had cause to ask where Kafir
"witch-doctors" or prophets are concerned, notably in the instance of a
certain Mavovo, of whom I hope to tell one day, whose predictions saved
my life and those of my companions.