esently replaced by one of fury--the just fury
of a man who suddenly has suffered an unutterable wrong. His whole frame
quivered, the veins stood out in knots on his neck and forehead, and his
fingers closed convulsively as though they were grasping the handle of a
spear. Presently the rage passed away--for as well might a man be wroth
with fate as with a Zulu despot--to be succeeded by a look of the most
hopeless misery. The proud dark eyes grew dull, the copper-coloured face
sank in and turned ashen, the mouth drooped, and down one corner of
it there trickled a little line of blood springing from the lip bitten
through in the effort to keep silence. Lifting his hand in salute to the
king, the great man rose and staggered rather than walked towards the
gate.

As he reached it, the voice of Cetywayo commanded him to stop. "Stay,"
he said, "I have a service for you, Nahoon, that shall drive out of your
head these thoughts of wives and marriage. You see this white man here;
he is my guest, and would hunt buffalo and big game in the bush country.
I put him in your charge; take men with you, and see that he comes to no
hurt. So also that you bring him before me within a month, or your life
shall answer for it. Let him be here at my royal kraal in the first week
of the new moon--when Nanea comes--and then I will tell you whether or
no I agree with you that she is fair. Go now, my child, and you, White
Man, go also; those who are to accompany you shall be with you at the
dawn. Farewell, but remember we meet again at the new moon, when we will
settle what pay you shall receive as keeper of my guns. Do not fail me,
White Man, or I shall send after you, and my messengers are sometimes
rough."

"This means that I am a prisoner," thought Hadden, "but it will go hard
if I cannot manage to give them the slip somehow. I don't intend to
stay in this country if war is declared, to be pounded into _mouti_
(medicine), or have my eyes put out, or any little joke of that sort."

*****

Ten days had passed, and one evening Hadden and his escort were encamped
in a wild stretch of mountainous country lying between the Blood and
Unvunyana Rivers, not more than eight miles from that "Place of the
Little Hand" which within a few weeks was to become famous throughout
the world by its native name of Isandhlwana. For three days they had
been tracking the spoor of a small herd of buffalo that still inhabited
the district, but as yet they had not