a leg, and so on, as they dangled there.
Oh, what vengeance should be mine!

"But how do I know this is true, thou witch?" I said. "How can I tell
it is not all a made-up story?"

"What have I to gain by making it up? Have I not rather to gain by not
telling it? Go home, Untuswa, and be happy with your new wives; they
are young and bright-eyed, and round, as I was once. _Yau_! Rest
content now you know Lalusini can never return. A returning
_inkosikazi_ is not always welcome; ha, ha!"

I stood gazing at her in silence, and the old hag went on.

"Yet it is better to lose an _inkosikazi_, if by that loss you sit in
the seat of a King! Ah, ah! Untuswa; there will be food for the
alligators then."

"Meanwhile they shall have some now. You have lived too long, Gegesa,
_and you know too much_. I trust not that croaking old tongue. This is
the price I pay for thy news--the price it is worth."

So saying, I picked her up by her ragged old blanket where it was
knotted round her, and before she had time to utter a cry, tossed her
clean over the brink of the rock. I heard the splash in the water
beneath, and without troubling to look over, I turned away.

With the blood-wave surging around my brain, I strode quickly onward.
Now the mystery of Lalusini's disappearance was a mystery no more. Any
last hope I might have clung to that she might one day reappear was
shattered. She had died as my first _inkosikazi_ had died, a death of
horror and of blood. _Whau_! but other blood should flow--should flow
in rivers--before many days had gone by. When the King had rid me of
Nangeza I had been well pleased, for her pestilent tongue and evil
temper had gone far towards rendering life a weariness; but I had lived
even longer with Lalusini than with Nangeza, but so far from doing aught
that should cause my love for her to decrease, Lalusini had taken care
that it should grow instead.

By the time I reached my kraal, night had fallen. Entering my large
hut, I called for Jambula the slave who had been with me in the slaying
of the ghost-bull. By birth Jambula was of the Amaxosa, a numerous and
warlike people whose land is to the southward, as you know, _Nkose_.
When a young man his family had been "eaten up" by order of its chief;
and he, narrowly escaping with is life, had at last found refuge with a
tribe of Basuti, among whom we had captured him. And now I knew that if
there was one man upon whose fidelity I coul