kraal of Nkunkundhlovu, the owner of three captive
Swazi girls who had been given me as wives by Dingane, the Great King,
and this, at any rate, was better than the stake of impalement at
Kwa'zingwenya.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A DEVOURING SWARM.

I had no reason, so far, to complain of my treatment at the hands of the
King, for I was supplied abundantly with all I required, either by the
orders of Dingane, or by the generosity of the _izinduna_ and warriors
of note within Nkunkundhlovu, many of whom would drop into my hut at all
times to have a talk with me; or we would sit in the shade in or about
the Great Place, watching the reviewing of young regiments put through
their practice by their chiefs, or talking and taking snuff. But
although many thus came to hear a tale from me, and no tale pleased them
so much as that of our flight from the great Tshaka, unless it were that
of the Battle of the Three Rifts, yet I would ever tell such tale
cautiously, suppressing or varying any event I deemed it not advisable
to dwell too much upon, and among such was that very battle, wherein my
strategy and that of Lalusini had saved our nation, for it might be that
by the same strategy I should destroy Umzilikazi, and that I did not
desire to reveal just yet.

Among those who would fain have got much out of me was Umhlela, one of
Dingane's principal indunas--a little soft-voiced man, who would sit
among the others and put in a word here and a word there, but always
such a word as required careful pondering before I could give an answer
to it. However, I had not myself sat at the right hand of a king all my
life for nothing.

Not until I had been three days at Nkunkundhlovu did the King send for
me. As I took my way to the great hut, through the _isigodhlo_, I
noticed that the latter was formed in such wise that, once inside, a man
might have difficulty in finding his way out of it, or indeed further
into it, which spoke much for the suspiciousness of Dingane's character,
of all of which I took careful note; for, _Nkose_, it is by reading such
small things that a man may look into the minds of other men, be they
kings or not, even as you white people draw knowledge from books.

Dingane was seated in the great hut, and with him three _izinduna_--
Umhlela, the one who had already sought to draw out of me a great deal
more than I had intended he should know; Nomapela, him with whom I had
come hither; and Tambusa, a large fierce-l