there as unconcerned as though there was
nobody within a day's journey of him.

"`See, O King!' they howled in their fury. `We will eat him up--blood,
hones, every fragment--as he sits there! All is possible with us. We
are crocodiles--we are hyenas--we are lions! _Hou! hou! hou_!'

"`Hear you what these say, Masuka?' said the King.

"`I hear a noise, lord. But--who are these?'

"The pity, the contempt, in the old man's tone as he gazed wonderingly
round upon the circle of frenzied magicians, I can hardly convey. They,
seeing it, roared with rage.

"`Thus does this impostor speak of the King's _izanusi_!' they howled.

"`_Izanusi_?' said the Mosutu. `Can they be _izanusi_--these?'

"`Show him what you can do,' said the King.

"Then our witch-doctors went through the most appalling performances.
Some fell down in fits, during which they tore their own ears off;
others gashed themselves, and stood on their heads for long at a time,
and howled. Some placed snakes round their necks, and by compressing
the reptiles' throats caused themselves to be all but strangled in their
constrictions. One man produced a huge serpent as long as himself and
as thick as his own arm, and, indeed, this was the most marvellous of
all, for where he could have secreted it passed all men's comprehension.
But all the while the old Mosutu sat watching these performances with
the same smile of contemptuous pity.

"`Now, Masuka,' said the King, as he signed to the _izanusi_ to desist,
`show thyself a greater magician than these, and thou shalt have thy
life. Thou must show me something I have never seen before. If thou
failest in this, I swear that thou shalt be eaten alive by these. I am
bent upon seeing something new this day, and the spectacle of a man
eaten alive by men will be a new one indeed. So pray for success upon
thy magic.'

"The furious bowlings of our own magicians were renewed. There was an
awesome, uneasy expression upon the faces of the lookers-on. Never was
Umzilikazi known to depart from his word. Unless, therefore, the old
Mosutu should show us some very strange and startling thing, he would
certainly meet with a fate which to us Zulus--accustomed as we were to
bloodshed in the ordinary way--seemed in the last degree horrible.
Again, if he fulfilled his undertaking, we might look for some very
terrifying exhibition of magic. Wherefore, the awe which rested upon
every face is beyond words.

"`Begin,' s