ven the boldness of Tambusa quailed before it.

And I--_Whau_!--I rejoiced that I still lived, and that Tola was dead.
But Tambusa did not.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE DWELLING OF THE WISE ONE.

With the slaughter of the witch doctors Dingane had retired, and the
vast assemblage of the people, breaking up, was streaming away in
different directions. Mahlula had disappeared.

Then, having gained my huts, I gave orders that I was to be left alone,
and sat down to take snuff and to think. For here was a wonderful
thing. She whom I had thought dead was alive again--had reappeared at
the very moment when death would otherwise have overtaken me. There was
something of fear in my mind as I thought of it all. Was it really
Lalusini whom I had seen, or was it another sorceress who bore to her a
most marvellous likeness--a sister, perhaps? But even the House of
Senzangakona could not produce two such, I reflected; and then the very
method she had adopted of averting from me the doom was the method of
Lalusini. And now I longed for her again, for, as I told you, _Nkose_,
I loved her as you white men love your women; but if, for some reason,
she had been forced to hide herself under another name, how could I, the
wanderer, the stranger, the man who had come hither to deliver his own
nation to destruction, reveal the real relationship between us by laying
claim to her?

How was it I had never heard men speak of her? No talk, no word of a
marvellous witch doctress, of a sorceress like no other ever seen, had
reached my ear. Tola I knew, and those who worked magic with him, but
of this one never a word. Was it because I was a stranger and not yet
fully trusted? But old Gegesa's tale was untrue anyhow, for here was
Lalusini alive and well, and beautiful as ever. Then I thought how to
get speech with her.

To this end I went out. First I sought the hut of Silwane. But when
after bringing round the talk to the events of the morning I would have
drawn out of him what he knew as to the sorceress Mahlula, I found that
he knew but little, as did those who sat in his hut. Her appearance in
their midst was mystery, her movements were mystery, her very dwelling
was mystery; and hearing this I thought how greatly I could have amazed
Silwane by revealing how it was through the magic of this sorceress that
our arms had won success over the great _impi_ he had helped to command
at the Place of the Three Rifts. But from them