us."

Thus, then, did the Wolf-Brethren bring death on the impi of Chaka, and
this was but the first of many deaths that they wrought with the help
of the wolves. For ever they ravened through the land at night, and,
falling on those they hated, they ate them up, till their name and the
name of the ghost-wolves became terrible in the ears of men, and the
land was swept clean. But they found that the wolves would not go abroad
to worry everywhere. Thus, on a certain night, they set out to fall upon
the kraals of the People of the Axe, where dwelt the chief Jikiza, who
was named the Unconquered, and owned the axe Groan-Maker, but when they
neared the kraal the wolves turned back and fled. Then Galazi remembered
the dream that he had dreamed, in which the Dead One in the cave had
seemed to speak, telling him that there only where the men-eaters had
hunted in the past might the wolves hunt to-day. So they returned home,
but Umslopogaas set himself to find a plan to win the axe.

CHAPTER XVI. UMSLOPOGAAS VENTURES OUT TO WIN THE AXE

Now many moons had gone by since Umslopogaas became a king of the
wolves, and he was a man full grown, a man fierce and tall and keen; a
slayer of men, fleet of foot and of valour unequalled, seeing by night
as well as by day. But he was not yet named the Slaughterer, and not
yet did he hold that iron chieftainess, the axe Groan-Maker. Still, the
desire to win the axe was foremost in his mind, for no woman had entered
there, who when she enters drives out all other desire--ay, my father,
even that of good weapons. At times, indeed, Umslopogaas would lurk in
the reeds by the river looking at the kraal of Jikiza the Unconquered,
and would watch the gates of his kraal, and once as he lurked he saw a
man great, broad and hairy, who bore upon his shoulder a shining axe,
hafted with the horn of a rhinoceros. After that his greed for this axe
entered into Umslopogaas more and more, till at length he scarcely
could sleep for thinking of it, and to Galazi he spoke of little else,
wearying him much with his talk, for Galazi loved silence. But for all
his longing he could find no means to win it.

Now it befell that as Umslopogaas hid one evening in the reeds, watching
the kraal of Jikiza, he saw a maiden straight and fair, whose skin shone
like the copper anklets on her limbs. She walked slowly towards the
reeds where he lay hidden. Nor did she top at the brink of the reeds;
she entered them and sat