The gate of the fence was open, and beyond it, on his stool in front of the large hut, sat Zikali.
Even at that distance it was impossible to mistake his figure, which was like no other that I had known in the world.

A broad-shouldered dwarf with a huge head, deep, sunken eyes and snowy hair that hung upon his shoulders; the whole frame and face pervaded with an air of great antiquity, and yet owing to the plumpness of the flesh and that freshness of skin which is sometimes seen in the aged, comparatively young-looking.
Such was the great wizard Zikali, known throughout the land for longer than any living man could remember as "Opener of Roads," a title that referred to his powers of spiritual vision, also as the "Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born," a name given to him by Chaka, the first and greatest of the Zulu kings, because of his deformity.
There he sat silent, impassive, staring open-eyed at the red ball of the setting sun, looking more like some unshapely statue than a man.

His silent, fierce-faced servants appeared.

To me they looked like the same men whom I had seen here three and twenty years before, only grown older.

Indeed, I think they were, for they greeted me by name and saluted by raising their broad spears.