ffered from the other women of our people, who,
when they are fair are fair with the flesh alone.

Now my heart went out to Nada as she stood in the moonlight, one
forsaken, not having where to lay her head, Nada, who alone was left
alive of all my children. I motioned to Umslopogaas to hide himself in
the shadow, and stepped forward.

"Ho!" I said roughly, "who are you, wanderer, and what do you here?"

Now Nada started like a frightened bird, but quickly gathered up her
thoughts, and turned upon me in a lordly way.

"Who are you that ask me?" she said, feigning a man's voice.

"One who can use a stick upon thieves and night-prowlers, boy. Come,
show your business or be moving. You are not of this people; surely that
moocha is of a Swazi make, and here we do not love Swazis."

"Were you not old, I would beat you for your insolence," said Nada,
striving to look brave and all the while searching a way to escape.
"Also, I have no stick, only a spear, and that is for warriors, not for
an old umfagozan like you." Ay, my father, I lived to hear my daughter
name me an umfagozan--a low fellow!

Now making pretence to be angry, I leaped at her with my kerrie up,
and, forgetting her courage, she dropped her spear, and uttered a little
scream. But she still held the shield before her face. I seized her
by the arm, and struck a blow upon the shield with my kerrie--it would
scarcely have crushed a fly, but this brave warrior trembled sorely.

"Where now is your valour, you who name my umfagozan?" I said: "you who
cry like a maid and whose arm is soft as a maid's."

She made no answer, but hugged her tattered blanket round her, and
shifting my grip from her arm, I seized it and rent it, showing her
breast and shoulder; then I let her go, laughing, and said:--

"Lo! here is the warrior that would beat an old umfagozan for his
insolence, a warrior well shaped for war! Now, my pretty maid who wander
at night in the garment of a man, what tale have you to tell? Swift with
it, lest I drag you to the chief as his prize! The old man seeks a new
wife, they tell me?"

Now when Nada saw that I had discovered her she threw down the shield
after the spear, as a thing that was of no more use, and hung her head
sullenly. But when I spoke of dragging her to the chief then she flung
herself upon the ground, and clasped my knees, for since I called him
old, she thought that this chief could not be Umslopogaas.

"Oh, my father," said the