heir hideous shapes. This is no pleasant or easy death."

"Nor is it for these, Great Great One," was the reply, with a sweep of
the hand over the doomed men, who, victims and executioners alike,
crouched motionless in the silence of despair. "And for them such a
death may be more terrible than for myself, who humbly trust that it may
be the opening of the gate of a new life whose glories are beyond
words."

"I think words enough have been spoken upon this matter," said
Umzilikazi, coldly. "Take thy choice, white _isanusi_. Thyself to the
alligators--or these."

"My choice is made, Black Elephant."

"Leap, then!" said the King, with a wave of the hand towards the brink.

"I may not do that," was the reply, "for it would be to take my own
life, which my teaching forbids. The slayers of the King must throw me
in--that they themselves may live. But, first, I desire a few moments
wherein to pray that the Great Great One above may receive my spirit."

To this Umzilikazi gave assent, and the white priest knelt down, and,
drawing out the cross, with the Figure of a Man upon it, he kissed this.
And then, for the first time, some of us noticed that the sign he made
upon himself with his hand more than once was in form even as that
cross.

_Whau, Nkose_! that was a strange sight--stranger, I think, I never
beheld. The sun was near his rest now, and his fading beams fell upon
the surface of the hideous pool beneath, painting it and the numerous
snouts of the hungry monsters lurking there as it were blood-red. And
above the crouching, awe-stricken multitude--the only movement among
which was the rolling of distended eyeballs, the grovelling figures of
the doomed ones, grey with fear, and not knowing yet if their lives
would indeed be spared--the stern, upright figure of Umzilikazi,
terrible in the offended majesty of his disobeyed commands, and the
subdued, shrinking countenance of the old _induna_. And, in the midst
of all, the kneeling priest, in his black, flowing robe, the tones of
whose voice, rising and falling quickly in prayer, being the only sounds
breaking in upon this dead and awesome silence. And to us who gazed it
seemed as though a strange light rested upon the face of the white
_isanusi_, imparting to it a look which had nothing in common with the
set, motionless expression to be seen upon the face of a brave man
doomed to die; but this might have been caused by the long rays of the
setting sun dart