Yet it must be common, for now that I come to think of it, no gipsy will tell a "true fortune" unless her hand is crossed with silver.
"I say, Quatermain," said Stephen idly, "since our friend Mavovo seems to know so much, ask him what has become of Brother John, as Hans suggested.

Tell me what he says afterwards, for I want to see something." So I went through the little gate in the wall in a natural kind of way, as though I had seen nothing, and appeared to be struck by the sight of the little fires.
"Well, Mavovo," I said, "are you doing doctor's work?
I thought that it had brought you into enough trouble in Zululand." "That is so, _Baba_," replied Mavovo, who had a habit of calling me "father," though he was older than I."It cost me my chieftainship and my cattle and my two wives and my son.

It made of me a wanderer who is glad to accompany a certain Macumazana to strange lands where many things may befall me, yes," he added with meaning, "even the last of all things.

And yet a gift is a gift and must be used.

You, _Baba_, have a gift of shooting and do you cease to shoot?
You have a gift of wandering and can you cease to wander ?" He picked up one of the burnt feathers from the little pile by his side and looked at it attentively.