Replying that she would if she might, and always keeping her eyes fixed upon his face, she bade him kneel down and look into the water in such fashion that he did not shut the moonlight off from it, and to tell us what he saw.
So he knelt and looked, whispering presently that on the midmost piece of glass there appeared the image of Suzanne, and on the others respectively those of Ralph, Jan himself, me his wife, and Sihamba.

I asked him what they were doing, but he could give me no clear answer, so I suppose that they were printed there like the heads on postage stamps, if indeed they existed anywhere except in Jan's brain, into which Sihamba had conjured them.
"What do you see more ?" asked Sihamba.
"I see a shadow in the water," he answered, "a dark shadow, and--it is like the head of Swart Piet cut out of black paper--it spreads till it almost hides all the faces on the bits of glass.

Almost, I say, but not quite, for things are passing beneath the shadow which I cannot distinguish.

Now it shrinks quite small, and lies only over your likeness, Sihamba, which shows through it red--yes, and all the water round it is red, and now there is nothing left;" and Jan rose pale with fright, and wiped his brow with a coloured pocket-handkerchief, muttering "Allemachter! this is magic indeed." "Let me look," I said, and I looked for a long while and saw nothing except the five bits of glass.

So I told Jan outright that he was a fool whom any conjurer could play with, but he waited until I had done and then asked Sihamba what the vision meant.
"Father of Swallow," she answered, "what I saw in the water mirror you have seen, only I saw more than you did because my sight is keener.