appens here I have to answer to my
father, and chief. His word was: let none enter, and--on the head ring
of Umzilikazi--none _shall_ enter--no, not even were it Umlimo himself."

The speaker's voice had risen to a roar, to which was added a shrill cry
of menace and resentment from the group of sorcerers at this blasphemous
utterance. Even the bold one's comrades looked somewhat aghast. Would
they ultimately yield? And yet--and yet--far away in Gandela one
broken-hearted woman was wearying high Heaven day and night on behalf of
him now threatened with this new and ghastly peril.

"Thy next battle will be thy last," said Gingamanzi slowly, pointing a
menacing finger at the obdurate sentinel.

"That we shall see. _Hau_! I seem to remember the chief of these
Abantwana Mlimo, when we were doctored, promising us that Makiwa's
bullets should turn to water. Yet, at Kezane, Makiwa's bullets were
made of very hard lead. And he who told us this was Gingamanzi."

This was a facer, and partly accounted for the secret contempt in which
the sorcerers were held by many in the nation. Moreover, since the
rising had begun, the fighting men had been brought into daily contact
with them, to the detriment of their _prestige_. Then, too, they always
skulked in a place of safety when fighting was to the fore--all save
one, and that one Qubani. But Qubani was not present in this camp.

Now Gingamanzi was an uncommonly difficult person to put down, and
lacked not readiness or assurance, else had he not filled the position
he did.

"Hard lead," he repeated when the sneering laughter of the warriors had
abated. "Hard lead! Ha! Those who found them so were those who were
wanting in faith. They suffered doubt as to our powers to linger in
their hearts while we were doctoring them. So the _muti_ failed in its
effect."

"_Eh! He_!" assented the residue of the sorcerers.

"Thou scoffing dog!" shrilled Gingamanzi. "Wilt thou now give passage
lest worse befall thee?"

For answer the other had picked up a gun.

"I will give thee `dog,'" he said, bringing it up. But the sorcerers
were thoroughly scared, and scattered yelling. Their _muti_ was not
proof against this, anyhow.

"_Hambani-gahle, Abantwana Mlimo_!" With which contemptuous dismissal
Ujojo turned his back on the irate sorcerers, and, going to the end of
the cave, bent over the recumbent form of his late master.

The latter moved restlessly, not recognising him