e room is the bed of the Queen, and on it she lay
very fast asleep. I could hear her breathe, and see one white
arm lying on the coverlid like a streak of snow on the dry grass.
The "Lady of the Night" doubled herself thus, and with the long
knife lifted crept towards the bed. So straight did she gaze
thereat that she never thought to look behind her. When she
was quite close Bougwan touched her on the arm, and she caught
her breath and turned, and I saw the knife flash, and heard it
strike. Well was it for Bougwan that he had the skin of iron
on him, or he had been pierced. Then for the first time he saw
who the woman was, and without a word he fell back astonished,
and unable to speak. She, too, was astonished, and spoke not,
but suddenly she laid her finger on her lip, thus, and walked
towards and through the curtain, and with her went Bougwan.
So close did she pass to me that her dress touched me, and I
was nigh to slaying her as she went. In the first outer room
she spoke to Bougwan in a whisper and, clasping her hands thus,
she pleaded with him, but what she said I know not. And so they
passed on to the second outer room, she pleading and he shaking
his head, and saying, "Nay, nay, nay". And it seemed to me that
he was about to call the guard, when she stopped talking and
looked at him with great eyes, and I saw that he was bewitched
by her beauty. Then she stretched out her hand and he kissed
it, whereon I gathered myself together to advance and take her,
seeing that now had Bougwan become a woman, and no longer knew
the good from the evil, when behold! she was gone.'

'Gone!' I ejaculated.

'Ay, gone, and there stood Bougwan staring at the wall like one
asleep, and presently he went too, and I waited a while and came
away also.'

'Art thou sure, Umslopogaas,' said I, 'that thou hast not been
a dreamer this night?'

In reply he opened his left hand, and produced about three inches
of a blade of a dagger of the finest steel. 'If I be, Macumazahn,
behold what the dream left with me. The knife broke upon Bougwan's
bosom and as I passed I picked this up in the sleeping-place
of the White Queen.'

CHAPTER XVIII
WAR! RED WAR!

Telling Umslopogaas to wait, I tumbled into my clothes and went
off with him to Sir Henry's room, where the Zulu repeated his
story word for word. It was a sight to watch Curtis' face as
he heard it.

'Great Heavens!' he said: 'here have I been sleeping away w