drew it
up their nostrils and politely thanked him between the sneezes.

As for myself, I lit a pipe and smoked it, for I seemed to require a
stimulant, or, rather, a sedative. Before it was finished Hans, who was
engaged in doctoring his scratches made by the vultures' beaks with a
concoction of leaves which he had been chewing, exclaimed suddenly in
his matter-of-fact voice:

"See, baas, here they come, the white people on one side and the black
on the other, just like the goats and the sheep at Judgment Day in the
Book."

I looked, and there to my right appeared the party of Boers, headed by
the Vrouw Prinsloo, who held the remnants of an old umbrella over her
head. To the left advanced a number of Zulu nobles and councillors, in
front of whom waddled Dingaan arrayed in his bead dancing dress. He was
supported by two stalwart body-servants, whilst a third held a shield
over his head to protect him from the sun, and a fourth carried a large
stool, upon which he was to sit. Behind each party, also, I perceived
a number of Zulus in their war-dress, all of them armed with broad
stabbing spears.

The two parties arrived at the stone upon which I was sitting almost
simultaneously, as probably it had been arranged that they should do,
and halted, staring at each other. As for me, I sat still upon my stone
and smoked on.

"Allemachte! Allan," puffed the Vrouw Prinsloo, who was breathless with
her walk up the hill, "so here you are! As you did not come back, I
thought you had run away and left us, like that stinkcat Pereira."

"Yes, Tante (aunt), here I am," I answered gloomily, "and I wish to
heaven that I was somewhere else."

Just then Dingaan, having settled his great bulk upon the stool and
recovered his breath, called to the lad Halstead, who was with him, and
said:

"O Tho-maas, ask your brother, Macumazahn, if he is ready to try to
shoot the vultures. If not, as I wish to be fair, I will give him a
little more time to make his magic medicine."

I replied sulkily that I was as ready as I was ever likely to be.

Then the Vrouw Prinsloo, understanding that the king of the Zulus was
before her, advanced upon him, waving her umbrella. Catching hold of
Halstead, who understood Dutch, she forced him to translate an harangue,
which she addressed to Dingaan.

Had he rendered it exactly as it came from her lips, we should all have
been dead in five minutes, but, luckily, that unfortunate young man had
learnt some