has caused me to do many foolish and fatal things, but
which has also carried me unscathed through their fearful consequences;
but when I found myself thus, with a free hand, I forgot all prudence
and diplomacy.

"Bounding forward in all my bravery of war, in my jackals' tails and
cowhair, with a great plume of cranes' feathers streaming from my head,
rapping my great shield against my knees, I leaped high in the air about
ten times, each time spinning completely round before touching ground
again. The roaring `Ha! ha!' with which the whole multitude greeted
this display completely intoxicated me. I felt as mad, as drunk, as
though I had partaken of the white man's _tywala_. With my eyes blazing
from my head, I cried aloud the whole story of our attack upon the
kraal. Not a word said I of having been Gungana's left hand, of having
carried out the plan which Gungana _sent me to carry out_. No, of this
not a word; instead, I poured forth the whole naked truth--how that
Masipele, the head _induna_, being killed, the _impi_ was on the point
of suffering defeat, when I conceived the idea of braving certain death
by myself entering the kraal, which the rest were unable to enter, and
myself setting it on fire, thus forcing the Basutu into the open and
saving the day. I shouted out the number and description of the enemies
who had fallen by my hand, and went through the exact performance of how
they had met me and how I had slain them; but all the time never a word
about Gungana and his generalship. I told no more, no less than the
truth, with all my boasting; but, _Nkose_, he who does this is
frequently no more and no less than a very great fool--at least, so it
is among ourselves; I know not how it may be among you white people.

"Well, I was carried away by my conceit; partly because, when I leaped
in the air, I could see in the background, above and beyond the
surrounding regiments, the face and form of my love, Nangeza. She was
standing among the women, watching, listening in a perfect ecstasy of
admiration and excitement. This was what nerved me to go through a
_Tyay'igama_ performance such as, surely, could never have been seen
before. I extolled myself and my own deeds as though I were the only
man alone in the whole world. The roaring shouts of the warriors rent
the night in a frenzy of enthusiasm. The King, I could see, looked upon
me approvingly, and I heard him mutter to my father, Ntelani, that he
had