r to savage solitude. Yet--was
it?

Rank upon rank they crouched, those dark rows of armed warriors, their
variegated shields and broad assegais lying upon the ground in front of
them. Row upon row of eager, expectant faces; set, intense; the roll of
eyeballs alone giving sign of mobile life, a constrained hum passing
down the gathering as they drank in the impassioned and burning words of
the speaker.

He was a largely-built, thick-set Zulu of a rich copper colour, which
threw out in unwonted blackness the jetty shine of his head-ring. He
held himself with the erect, haughty ease of a king addressing his
subjects, of a despot speaking to those who owned their very lives only
at his will. Yet, he was not the King.

He had begun addressing them in the sitting posture, but as he warmed to
his subject had risen to his feet, and now strode up and down as he
spoke.

"I am nobody. I am a boy. I am a child among the sons of Senzangakona,
the Root of the Tree that overshadows the land, the rise of the sun that
sheds light on the people. It is not I who should be talking here
to-day, Amazulu. _Hau_! even as that Great One foretold, he who died by
`the stroke of Sopuza' the land is splintered and rent. He,
Senzangakona's great son, he whom the whites have taken from us, the
shine of whose head-ring is dulled in his prison--what of him? Not
little by little, but in large cuts his `life' is being rent from him.
Where are they whom he left--they who were as his life? Ha! are they
not given over as a prey to a traitor; the spoiler of his father's
house, the son of Mapita. Who is he? The dog of him who is gone. Who
is Sibepu?"

"_Whau_! Sibepu!" broke from the listeners. "The spoiler of his
father's house!"

"_Eh-he_! The spoiler of his father's house!" echoed the group of
chiefs, squatted behind the speaker.

"From the meanest of the nation," went on the speaker, "the _Abelungu_
have chosen those who should be kings over us. Umfanawendhlela, he who
now sits at the royal kraals on the Mahlabatini. Who is he? Who is
Umfanawendhlela?"

"_Whau_! Umfanawendhlela!" broke forth again the contemptuous roar.

"Yet such as these are the _Abelungu_ now using as their dogs, setting
them on to hunt those before whom they formerly cringed and crawled.
Those of the House of Senzangakona are already hungry. All their cattle
is being taken by these dogs of the _Abelungu_, and with the women of
the Royal House they c