They have no tongues, the Esemkofu, for had they tongues they would cry aloud to mortals the awful secrets of the dead, therefore, they can but utter a wailing like that of a babe.

Surely one may hear them in the forests at night as they wail "Ai!--ah! Ai--ah!" among the silent trees! You laugh, my father, but I did not laugh as I thought of these tales; for, if men have spirits, where do the spirits go when the body is dead?
They must go somewhere, and would it be strange that they should return to look upon the lands where they were born?
Yet I never thought much of such matters, though I am a doctor, and know something of the ways of the Amatongo, the people of the ghosts.

To speak truth, my father, I have had so much to do with the loosing of the spirits of men that I never troubled myself overmuch with them after they were loosed; there will be time to do this when I myself am of their number.
So I sat and gazed on the mountain and the forest that grew over it like hair on the head of a woman, and as I gazed I heard a sound that came from far away, out of the heart of the forest as it seemed.

At first it was faint and far off, a distant thing like the cry of children in a kraal across a valley; then it grew louder, but still I could not say what it might be; now it swelled and swelled, and I knew it--it was the sound of wild beats at chase.

Nearer came the music, the rocks rang with it, and its voice set the blood beating but to hearken to it.