tinel
is found at his post tied up, and gagged, and useless as a wooden log.'

"Umzilikazi paused a moment, looking the young warrior full in the face
with a bitter and scornful expression. Then, in that quiet and stinging
tone, which he adopted when in the most terrible of his moods, he went
on:

"`When a soldier of the King allows himself to be turned into a log for
one night, is it not meet that he should be turned into one for ever?
Now a log has no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with; it has no
hands, no arms, no legs.'

"Then, _Nkose_, it seemed to me that I had come to the end of my life.
Here was I obliged to stand by while my own father's son was put to a
most hideous and disgraceful death, through my means, and keep silence.
I was on the point of speaking, of proclaiming myself the offender,
when, from my position behind the King, I caught sight of Nangeza
standing among the women, so tall and stately and splendid, and the
recollection that if I spoke the lives of two would be taken instead of
the life of one came back to me. Nay, further, I remembered that though
Nangeza and myself would certainly be adjudged to die the death, the
King would, not any the more on that account spare the life of my
brother, Sekweni, whose offence was an unpardonable one.

"`A sentinel who is surprised and overpowered at his post is clearly of
no use at all,' went on the King. `We do not keep anything that is of
no use, not even a dog. What hast thou to say, son of Ntelani?'

"`This, O Black Elephant,' answered my brother. `I was bewitched!'

"`Ha! that is not much of a story,' said the King; `though a stout hide
thong may bind about a man a powerful spell. Yet, tell thy tale.'

"`The spell was a female spell, O King!' replied my brother. And then
he went on to tell how his seizure and binding had been done by feminine
hands. The forms of those who had thus made him captive were the forms
of women, and most perfectly moulded women, he declared. Of this he had
been assured during the struggle, and the spells they had woven round
him had rendered him powerless. Was not this ample proof that he had
been bewitched? since what living woman would undertake to overpower and
bind one of the King's sentinels? Wizardry of the most dreaded kind was
at work here.

"Now, when I heard this, I trembled for Nangeza. Why would she stand
forth thus, so prominent among the other women, in all the splendid
vigour of her sy