it was better to die with
the words of a brave man on one's lips than with the grovelling whine of
a coward.

Yet, just then, the laugh disappeared from my mind, for, looking up, I
beheld drawing near old Masuka. Bent double, tottering with age, he
crept along, and squatted, just a little apart, behind the _izinduna_.

"Now," I thought, "if the King chooses to converse yet longer with
Tauane through the old Mosutu, then, indeed, I am undone."

But the Great Great One seemed in no mood for further _indaba_. Signing
me to approach, he whispered a few words, and seldom or never have a few
words sounded more welcome. Springing up, I passed round my orders to
the warriors, and in a moment Tauane and those that remained of his
people were seized and bound with thongs.

Then the King spoke, and his tones never were softer:

"Yonder is a round wall within another. Within those walls two men,
fighting-men of the Amazulu, fought throughout the shining of
yesterday's sun--fought against a twofold enemy, the whole might of the
People of the Blue Cattle and against fire! And one of these two men
was the tongue and mouthpiece of myself. This day, again, those walls
shall witness a merry strife, but it shall not be against such great and
overpowering odds. The remaining fighting-men of the People of the Blue
Cattle, who still number a great many more than two, shall, to-day,
strive within those round walls. But they shall fight there against one
enemy only--one enemy instead of two--wherein I am more merciful than
they. And that enemy shall be fire! Go now, ye who remain of the
warriors of Bakoni! go now, and fight where my two warriors fought.
Fare ye well, _Hambani gahle_!"

The wave of the hand with which the King concluded was our signal. The
warriors hailed the Great Great One's words with roars of acclamation,
and, throwing themselves upon the prisoners--nearly a hundred in
number--began dragging them off to the round stone walls, which stood up
from the plain some little distance off, amid the smoking ruins of the
town of the Bakoni. Others, fleet-footed, had run on in advance, and by
the time we arrived at the ruins had gathered and piled up a dense ring
of brushwood and dry grass. The prisoners, bound, and shrieking and
kicking, were flung within the inner wall, where they were heaped up,
one upon another, a tossing, struggling mass.

"_Gahle--gahle_!" I cried. "Not so fast! The chief must crown the
p