ds me. This time I was gone. But, no!
They halted more suddenly than before, and their song seemed to die on
their very lips. Then I looked up from calculating the distance between
my stick and the skull of Tambusa, and beheld--a woman!

She was standing alone in the open, midway between the cloud of scowling
witch doctors and the band of girls, and there was that in her wondrous
eyes which constrained and controlled the latter. She, too, was arrayed
in rich beadwork, but wore no wreaths or garlands of leaves, and as I
gazed upon her standing there--a splendid and majestic form--why then,
_Nkose_, anybody who chose might have stepped up and slain me,
unresisting in my amazement. For she who stood there was none other
than my lost sorceress-wife, Lalusini.

Had the shades sent forth their spirits? Had the grim alligators in
Umzilikazi's pool of death shrank back in fear from so royal a prey?
Was I dreaming, or had I gone mad with the prolonged suspense of my
impending doom? No! In the very life there she stood--she to avenge
whom I would have slain a king--would have destroyed a whole mighty
nation. And she stood there to avert from me the sure and dreadful
death--the death of the man at whom the witch-wand has been pointed.

One glance she flashed upon me from her wonderful eyes--quick, full,
penetrating--one glance and no more; but in that glance I knew I was
safe, for who should harm one whom the most marvellous magic ever known
now protected?

For some time thus she stood, speaking no word, only gazing around with
calm commanding eyes. Then the King grew impatient.

"Have done," he exclaimed, with a frown. "Let us see whether the magic
of Mahlula is greater than that of Tola."

"The magic of Mahlula," had said Dingane. Then Lalusini was not known.
Yet it seemed to me the majesty of the House of Senzangakona was so
stamped upon every feature that her very look must betray her.

"Judge now for thyself, Father of the Wise," she replied. "This is the
word of Mahlula. The `stranger' of whom Tola speaks, of whom his
company did but now sing, is not here, else these"--showing with a sweep
of the hand the band of girls, who had ceased their movements and were
now sitting in a ring around her--"these whom I have trained and taught
would have found him--for my will works through theirs--my eyes see
through theirs. Therefore, he cannot be here."

"Why, then, are we?" said Dingane, with a meaning in his to