save the child and kill the king. Now
choose, and swiftly!"

She sank bank, there was silence, and we looked one upon another. Then
Unandi spoke.

"Give me your hand, Mopo, and swear that you will be faithful to me in
this secret, as I swear to you. A day may come when this child who has
not seen the light rules as king in Zululand, and then in reward you
shall be the greatest of the people, the king's voice, whisperer in the
king's ear. But if you break your oath, then beware, for I shall not die
alone!"

"I swear, Mother of the Heavens," I answered.

"It is well, son of Makedama."

"It is well, my brother," said Baleka. "Now go and do that which must be
done swiftly, for my sorrow is upon me. Go, knowing that if you fail I
will be pitiless, for I will bring you to your death, yes, even if my
own death is the price!"

So I went. "Whither to you go?" asked the guard at the gate.

"I go to bring my medicines, men of the king," I answered.

So I said; but, oh! my heart was heavy, and this was my plan--to fly far
from Zululand. I could not, and I dared not do this thing. What? should
I kill my own child that its life might be given for the life of the
babe of Baleka? And should I lift up my will against the will of the
king, saving the child to look upon the sun which he had doomed to
darkness? Nay, I would fly, leaving all, and seek out some far tribe
where I might begin to live again. Here I could not live; here in the
shadow of Chaka was nothing but death.

I reached my own huts, there to find that my wife Macropha was delivered
of twins. I sent away all in the hut except my other wife, Anadi, she
who eight days gone had born me a son. The second of the twins was born;
it was a boy, born dead. The first was a girl, she who lived to be Nada
the Beautiful, Nada the Lily. Then a thought came into my heart. Here
was a path to run on.

"Give me the boy," I said to Anadi. "He is not dead. Give him to me that
I may take him outside the kraal and wake him to life by my medicine."

"It is of no use--the child is dead," said Anadi.

"Give him to me, woman!" I said fiercely. And she gave me the body.

Then I took him and wrapped him up in my bundle of medicines, and
outside of all I rolled a mat of plaited grass.

"Suffer none to enter the hut till I return," I said; "and speak no word
of the child that seems to be dead. If you allow any to enter, or if you
speak a word, then my medicine will not work and the bab