of Dingane had defeated them and had driven them
back; and but for their horses would have stamped them out entirely.
Then the English at Tegwini had undertaken to interfere in this quarrel,
and had crossed the Tugela with a large _impi_ of Amakafula. These,
however, got no further than the bank of the Tugela, for the King's
warriors made meat of that _impi_ until the river ran red with their
blood; and, in his wrath and disgust at this breach of faith on the part
of the whites at Tegwini, Dingane sent an _impi_ there to eat them up,
too. _Whau_! and they would have been eaten up but that they took to
the water--took refuge on a ship that was there--for these whites,
_Nkose_, had no business to interfere in a quarrel which concerned them
not. They were not of the blood of the Amabuna, and they had ever been
treated as friends by the house of Senzangakona since the great Tshaka
had allowed them the use of the lands on which they then dwelt. So they
were rightly served.

Now all these tales of war and of great battles fired my blood, for I
would fain have been in them; yet here I was, hiding away as a fugitive.
But when I would have boldly returned, craving only that Dingane would
allow me to wield a spear in the ranks of his troops, Lalusini dissuaded
me. The hostility of Tambusa and Umhlela burned as hot against me as
ever, and indeed I had fled not any too soon. She bade me wait. She
herself was high in favour with the King by reason of the victories
which had attended the Zulu arms, for she had foretold them.

Not without risk did I thus meet Lalusini. I could not reveal the real
relationship between us, and the suspicions of the fierce Bapongqolo
once fairly aroused, I might be slain suddenly and without warning, and
no opportunity given me of explanation or self-defence. Indeed, after
the first time, I thought I noticed a frost of suspiciousness in the
converse of those people towards me as we sat around our fires at night.
But the second time something so unlooked for happened that it gave
them all something else to think about.

Lalusini had finished telling me all there was of news when, of a
sudden, her manner became strange and suspicious.

"We are being watched, Untuswa," she said quietly.

"Watched? Why then, it will be bad--ah, very bad--for the watcher."

And hardly had the words escaped me than I darted from her side. I
hurled myself through the thickness of the bush, but something was
alr