reat One," moaned the other.

"Ha! And do ye hesitate? Who hesitates to face death at the word of
the King? And if it is death for most men, ye jackals, is not your
_muti_ strong enough to render this of no avail? I speak not twice."

So these two grasped the arrow--first one, then the other--and obeyed
the King's word. And we, bending forward, watched them keenly and with
joy; for we hated these crawling snakes of _izanusi_, who would have
made of themselves, King, army, nation, all rolled into one. And we
took care that there was no trickery in what they now did. So it
happened that not long after they had pricked each other with the arrow
they grew heavy and sleepy, and soon rolled over dead, and frothing at
the mouth. For Umzilikazi judged that these two had supplied Nangeza
with the poison, and there was nothing he loved so much as making the
evil which one had prepared for another the manner whereby that one
himself should fall.

"Now talk we of Kwelanga," he said, when the bodies had been removed.
"Thou, Lalusini, will the little one ever return to us?"

"They who wander abroad by night without weapons of defence run great
danger, O Elephant," she replied. "When such are but little children,
what chance have they?"

"Yet the witch who is gone accused thee of a hand in her disappearance?"

"Then did she lie, Great Great One," answered Lalusini softly. "No part
did I bear in this. Yet one thing my serpent tells me. Not for ill was
this child of the sunshine saved from reddening the Amandebeli spears
what time the other children of the Amabuna perished thereby.
Wherefore, when her voice again shall be heard, neglect it not, lest a
nation be a nation no more. Lo, it groweth dark and all things are
night! I hear the sound of a trampling of feet, of the quiver of spears
as the forest boughs in a gale, the clash and roar of hosts in battle,
the song of victory!"

"And to whom the victory, my sister?" said the King.

Lalusini turned wonderingly at the voice and passed her hand once or
twice over her brow. Her eyes came back to earth again, and she seemed
as one who has but awakened from a long, deep sleep. And we who beheld
it were stricken with awe, for we knew that the sorceress had parted
with her spirit for a time; and this, soaring away through the fields of
space and of the future, had beheld that to which her lips had given
utterance, and, indeed, a great deal more to which they had not. A