The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Child of Storm by H. Rider Haggard: and everything, completely ignoring the head-wife. For a while Nandie
bore it with patience, but at length she took advantage of a pause in
the conversation to say in her firm, low voice:
"This is my hut, daughter of Umbezi, a thing which you remember well
enough when it is a question whether Saduko, our husband, shall visit
you or me. Can you not remember it now when I would speak with the
white chief, Watcher-by-Night, who has been so good as to take the
trouble to come to see me?"
On hearing these words Mameena leapt up in a rage, and I must say I
never saw her look more lovely.
"You insult me, daughter of Panda, as you always try to do, because you
 Child of Storm |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from When the World Shook by H. Rider Haggard: five or six and twenty years of age, or so I judged. There she
lay, her tall and delicate shape half hidden in masses of
rich-hued hair in colour of a ruddy blackness. I know not how
else to describe it, since never have I seen any of the same
tint. Moreover, it shone with a life of its own as though it had
been dusted with gold. From between the masses of this hair
appeared a face which I can only call divine. There was every
beauty that woman can boast, from the curving eyelashes of
extraordinary length to the sweet and human mouth. To these
charms also were added a wondrous smile and an air of kind
dignity, very different from the fierce pride stamped upon the
 When the World Shook |