taken from us, and for whom our hearts are crying. Though
in my old age I fought for Cetywayo as an ordinary warrior, yet I was,
while yet young, a great _induna_ at the right hand of another king, and
the second in command of his armies. For my youth, and, indeed, most of
my life, was passed among a kindred people who dwell to the north. I am
from the Amandebili."

[Amandebili: commonly known as Matabili.]

CHAPTER ONE.

TSHAKA'S IMPI.

Now I saw I was going to get at a wonderful story. The incidents and
recollections which would cluster round that beautifully-made
dark-handled spear could not fail to be copious as well as passing
strange. Then, in his pleasant and flowing Zulu voice--_the_ voice _par
excellence_ for narrative purposes--the old man began:

"I am Untuswa, the son of Ntelani, a Zulu of the tribe of Umtetwa. I
was a boy in the days when Tshaka, the great King, ruled this land, and
trampled his enemies flatter than the elephant tramples the
grass-blades. But I was full of the fighting blood which has made our
people what they are--what they wore, rather"--he parenthesised sadly,
recollecting that we were looking down upon the relics of fallen
greatness, as represented by the silent desolation of the razed
capital--"ah, yes! But instead of fighting for Tshaka I fought under a
very different sort of king.

[Tshaka: The name of the celebrated Zulu King should, in strict
accuracy, be written Tyaka. The above spelling, however, has been
adopted throughout this narrative in consideration for the British ear.
To spell the name with a C is quite erroneous.]

"When there are two bulls of nearly equal size in one kraal, they will
not look long at each other before locking their horns. There were two
such bulls in those days in the land of Zulu, and they were Tshaka, the
son of Senzangakona, who was the King, and Umzilikazi, the son of
Matyobane. I was but a boy, I repeat, in those days, but they tell me
that Umzilikazi loved not the house of Senzangakona. But he was wiser
than the serpent if braver than the bull-buffalo in full charge. He
thought it better to be a live king than a dead _induna_.

[Umzilikazi: More commonly, but quite erroneously, known as
Mosilekatse.]

"It befell that he dropped out of favour with the great King; for being,
though young, one of the first fighting chiefs among the Amazulu, he
soon gathered to himself an immense following. To him, too, came my
father, Nt