y, I saw soldiers stationed at
intervals of about fifteen yards. There they stood like statues, their
broad spears in their hands, all looking inwards towards the fence.
There they stood--only at night their number was doubled. Clearly it was
not meant that I should escape.

A week went by thus--believe me, a very terrible week. During that time
my sole companion was the pretty young woman, Naya. We became friends
in a way and talked on a variety of subjects. Only, at the end of our
conversations I always found that I had gained no information whatsoever
about any matter of immediate interest. On such points as the history of
the Zulu and kindred tribes, or the character of Chaka, the great king,
or anything else that was remote she would discourse by the hour. But
when we came to current events, she dried up like water on a red-hot
brick. Still, Naya grew, or pretended to grow, quite attached to me. She
even suggested naively that I might do worse than marry her, which she
said Dingaan was quite ready to allow, as he was fond of me and thought
I should be useful in his country. When I told her that I was already
married, she shrugged her shining shoulders and asked with a laugh that
revealed her beautiful teeth:

"What does that matter? Cannot a man have more wives than one? And,
Macumazahn," she added, leaning forward and looking at me, "how do you
know that you have even one? You may be divorced or a widower by now."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I? I mean nothing; do not look at me so fiercely, Macumazahn. Surely
such things happen in the world, do they not?"

"Naya," I said, "you are two bad things--a bait and a spy--and you know
it."

"Perhaps I do, Macumazahn," she answered. "Am I to blame for that, if my
life is on it, especially when I really like you for yourself?"

"I don't know," I said. "Tell me, when am I going to get out of this
place?"

"How can I tell you, Macumazahn?" Naya replied, patting my hand in her
genial way, "but I think before long. When you are gone, Macumazahn,
remember me kindly sometimes, as I have really tried to make you as
comfortable as I could with a watcher staring through every straw in the
hut."

I said whatever seemed to be appropriate, and next morning my
deliverance came. While I was eating my breakfast in the courtyard at
the back of the hut, Naya thrust her handsome and pleasant face round
the corner and said that there was a messenger to see me from the king.
Le