you, O king, I am ready to die, and so is my son. Yet we pray
you to spare the little one. He is but a boy, who may grow up to do you
good service, as I have done to you and your House for many years."

"Be silent, you white-headed dog!" answered Dingaan fiercely. "This lad
is a wizard, like the rest of you, and would grow up to bewitch me and
to plot with my enemies. Know that I have stamped out all your family,
and shall I then leave him to breed another that would hate me?
Begone to the World of Spirits, and tell them how Dingaan deals with
sorcerers."

The old man tried to speak again, for evidently he loved this grandchild
of his, but a soldier struck him in the face, and Dingaan shouted:

"What! Are you not satisfied? I tell you that if you say more I will
force you to kill the boy with your own hand. Take them away."

Then I turned and hid my face, as did all the white folk. Presently I
heard the old man, whom they had saved to the last that he might witness
the deaths of his descendants, cry in a loud voice:

"On the night of the thirtieth full moon from this day I, the
far-sighted, I, the prophet, summon thee, Dingaan, to meet me and mine
in the Land of Ghosts, and there to pay--"

Then with a roar of horror the executioners fell on him and he died.
When there was silence I looked up, and saw that the king, who had
turned a dirty yellow hue with fright, for he was very superstitious,
was trembling and wiping the sweat from his brow.

"You should have kept the wizard alive," he said in a shaky voice to the
head slayer, who was engaged in cutting three more nicks on the handle
of his dreadful kerry. "Fool, I would have heard the rest of his lying
message."

The man answered humbly that he thought it best it should remain
unspoken, and got himself out of sight as soon as possible. Here I may
remark that by an odd coincidence Dingaan actually was killed about
thirty moons from that time. Mopo, his general, who slew his brother
Chaka, slew him also with the help of Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka. In
after years Umslopogaas told me the story of the dreadful ghost-haunted
death of this tyrant, but, of course, he could not tell me exactly upon
what day it happened. Therefore I do not know whether the prophecy was
strictly accurate.*

[*--For the history of the death of Dingaan, see the
Author's "Nada the Lily."]

The three victims lay dead in the hollow of the Hill of Death. Presently
the king, re