, honest fighter, whose spear
refused to strike the sleeping one--who chose to serve a King in his
downfall rather than be served as King thyself. Thou wilt never be
greater than an induna thyself, and I--well, I think I shall never be
greater than an induna's wife."

And with these words she began to spread the mats in the hut, and heaped
more wood upon the fire, and saw that things were in their places. Then
she came and sat beside me.

Well, what mattered further greatness? I was great enough, being high
in the councils of those who, under the King, ruled the nation, and for
long I sat thus in a high place, and the favour of Mpande was always
over me. But I had indeed passed through strange things, even as old
Gasitye had predicted I should when speaking from the ghost-cliff in the
Valley of the Red Death. Yes, and even more was I destined to see, for
soon the Amabuna were driven out in their turn, and the land they had
seized from us was reft from them by the English. Howbeit on these we
made no war, for they entered into a treaty with Mpande that the Zulu
people should dwell on this side of the Tugela, and the English on the
other; and this agreement they kept faithfully for a long space of time
until they began to fear Cetywayo, and then--but, _Nkose_, about that
you know, and I have already told far too long a tale for one night.
Yet, it is strange that the sight of the horns of your oxen, branching
through the mist, should have drawn forth not only the tale of the
ghost-bull and the Valley of the Red Death, but a greater one still--
even that of the downfall and death of Dingane, and the dividing of the
great Zulu nation; but so it ever is with the lives of men, one thing
leads on to another. And now, _Nkose_, I think the time has come for
sleep. Sleep well, _Nkose. Whau_! I know not whether you will return
to this country again to hear tales of its old doings of battle and of
blood, of warrior-kings and sorcerers, and beasts that have the life of
the ghosts of magicians within them, for I am old now, and my time is at
hand for a longer sleep than that which now awaits me underneath your
waggon. _Nkose! Hlala gahle_!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

But though old Untuswa could thus turn in, and with his blanket over his
head could snooze away snugly beneath the shelter of the waggon, to me
slumber refused to come. The graphic tale I had just heard, the t