hat laid
low my father, Hintza? I will, indeed, go, but it will be with the
whole array of the fighting men of the Amaxosa at my back.

"`Hear my "word," my children of the House of Nteya, _pakati_ of the
race of Ngqika. Hear my "word" as spoken through the mouth of Hlangani,
my herald. Receive these oxen as a present from your father to his
children. Eat them, and when you have eaten and your hearts are strong,
stand prepared. Let the war-cry roll through the mountains and valleys
of our fair land. Let the thunder of your war-dances shake the earth as
the reeds by the water side quiver beneath the rushing of the storm
wind. Let the trumpet tongues of your war-fires gleam from the mountain
tops--tongue roaring to tongue--that the Amanglezi may hear it and
tremble; for the spirit of Hintza, my father, which has slumbered for
years, is awake again and is crying for vengeance--is crying and crying
aloud that the time has come.'"

The speaker ceased. A dead silence fell upon his hearers--a weird
silence upon that tumultuous crowd crouching in eager expectancy in the
red firelight. Suddenly, upon the black gloom of the night, far away to
the eastward, there gleamed forth a streak of flame. Then another and
another. A subdued roar ran around the circle. Then, as by magic, a
crimson glare fell upon the serried ranks of expectant listeners,
lighting up their fantastic war panoply as with the light of day. From
the hill top above the kraal there shot up a great tongue of red flame.
It leaped high into the velvety blackness of the heavens. Splitting up
into many a forking flash it roared in the air--the gleaming rays
licking up into a cloud of lurid smoke which blotted out the stars in
its reddening folds. The distant war signal of the Gcaleka chieftain
was answered.

"Ha!" cried Hlangani, in a voice of thunder. "Ha! Now will the heart
of your father, Sarili, be glad. Now have ye proved yourselves his
children indeed, oh, sons of Ngqika! Now have you proved yourselves
men, for the trumpet tongues of your war-flames are crying aloud--tongue
roaring to tongue upon the wings of the night."

With the quickness of lightning the warriors had again thrown themselves
into formation, and now worked up to a pitch of uncontrollable
excitement, the unearthly cadence of the war-song rose into a fiendish
roar, and the thunder of the demon dance rolled and reverberated among
the hills, while lighting up the fierce array o