hese many days? Speak, O Mouth, lest I kill you."

"Slay if you will, Umslopogaas," I answered, "but know that when the
brains are scattered the mouth is dumb. He who scatters brains loses
wisdom."

"Answer!" he said.

"I answer not. Who are you that I should answer you? I know; it is
enough. To my business."

Now Umslopogaas ground his teeth in anger. "I am not wont to be thwarted
here in my own kraal," he said; "but do your business. Speak it, little
Mouth."

"This is my business, little Chief. When the Black One who is gone yet
lived, you sent him a message by one Masilo--such a message as his ears
had never heard, and that had been your death, O fool puffed up with
pride, but death came first upon the Black One, and his hand was stayed.
Now Dingaan, whose shadow lies upon the land, the king whom I serve, and
who sits in the place of the Black One who is gone, speaks to you by me,
his mouth. He would know this: if it is true that you refuse to own his
sovereignty, to pay tribute to him in men and maids and cattle, and to
serve him in his wars? Answer, you little headman!--answer in few words
and short!"

Now Umslopogaas gasped for breath in his rage, and again he fingered the
great axe. "It is well for you, O Mouth," he said, "that I swore safe
conduct to you, else you had not gone hence--else you had been served
as I served certain soldiers who in bygone years were sent to search out
one Umslopogaas. Yet I answer you in few words and short. Look on those
spears--they are but a fourth part of the number I can muster: that
is my answer. Look now on yonder mountain, the mountain of ghosts
and wolves--unknown, impassable, save to me and one other: that is my
answer. Spears and mountains shall come together--the mountain shall
be alive with spears and with the fangs of beasts. Let Dingaan seek his
tribute there! I have spoken!"

Now I laughed shrilly, desiring to try the heart of Umslopogaas, my
fosterling, yet further.

"Fool!" I said. "Boy with the brain of a monkey, for every spear you
have Dingaan, whom I serve, can send a hundred, and your mountain shall
be stamped flat; and for your ghosts and wolves, see, with the mouth of
Dingaan I spit upon them!" and I spat upon the ground.

Now Umslopogaas shook in his rage, and the great axe glimmered as he
shook. He turned to the captain who was behind him, and said: "Say,
Galazi the Wolf, shall we kill this man and those with him?"

"Nay," answered the Wolf, gr