Since she was gone all else went for nothing, so much so that he did not offer to assist with the wounded Zulus or show curiosity about the strange old man by whom we had been rescued.
"The Great Medicine, Baas," said Hans in a bewildered way, "is even more powerful than I thought.

Not only has it brought us safely through the fighting and without a scratch, for those Zulus there do not matter and there will be less cooking for me to do now that they are gone; it has also brought down your reverend father the Predikant from the Place of Fires in Heaven, somewhat changed from what I remember him, it is true, but still without doubt the same.

When I make my report to him presently, if he can understand my talk, I shall----" "Stop your infernal nonsense, you son of a donkey," I broke in, for at this moment old Father Christmas, smiling more benignly than before, re-appeared from the kloof into which he had vanished and advanced towards us bowing with much politeness.
Having seated himself upon the little wall that we had built up, he contemplated us, stroking his beautiful white beard, then said, addressing me, "Of a certainty you should be proud who with a few have defeated so many.

Still, had I not been ordered to come at speed, I think that by now you would have been as those are," and he looked towards the dead Zulus who were laid out at a distance like men asleep, while their companions sought for a place to bury them.
"Ordered by whom ?" I asked.
"There is only one who can order," he answered with mild astonishment.
"'She-who-commands, She-who-is-everlasting'!" It occurred to me that this must be some Arabic idiom for the Eternal Feminine, but I only looked vague and said, "It would appear that there are some whom this exalted everlasting She cannot command; those who attacked us; also those who have fled away yonder," and I waved my hand towards the mountain.
"No command is absolute; in every country there are rebels, even, as I have heard, in Heaven above us.

But, Wanderer, what is your name ?" "Watcher-by-Night," I answered.
"Ah! a good name for one who must have watched well by night, and by day too, to reach this country living where She-who-commands says that no man of your colour has set foot for many generations.