shall save thee from the fate I
promised.'

"A roar of _bonga_ went up from all. When it had subsided, the old man
said:

"`Search me. Let the King see himself that it is done thoroughly.' And
he stretched out his arms.

"`Search him, Untuswa,' said Umzilikazi. `Search him while I watch.'

"Handing the royal shield to another of the body-guard, I stepped
forward. So frail and puny did the little old man look, his head hardly
reaching to my chest, his withered limbs like bits of broken stick, that
it seemed as though I could have blown him away. Yet I feared him. I
feared the glitter of his snake-like eyes. But I feared the King even
more, wherefore I was careful to show no sign of hesitation.

"Save for a very scanty _mutya_ around his loins and a strip of hide
which served as a bandage to his bruised and battered head, the old
Mosutu was entirely naked. He no longer wore even his mystic adornments
as witch-doctor. In a moment I was able to satisfy myself that there
was absolutely nothing upon him.

"`Where hast thou deposited thy _muti_, old man?' said the King, when I
had reported this. `Shall it not be brought?'

"`I require it not, lord. Such as these,' with a sweep of the arm
towards our own _izanusi_, `such as these require many things--I,
nothing.'

"`Proceed, then.'

"`Yonder is a mound upon the plain,' pointing to a small rise outside
our lines about four times the distance a man could cast a spear. `Does
the King allow me to proceed yonder alone?'

"`Go,' said Umzilikazi.

"There lay upon our host a deep, dead silence, such as might be felt.
Every breath was drawn in, every head bent forward, every eye dilated
upon the little shrivelled form of the old witch-doctor as he shambled
forth from our midst to the spot indicated.

"Arrived there, he lay flat upon the ground, placing his ear against it
as though he were talking to someone beneath and listening for an
answer; and, indeed, talking he was, for we could hear the muttering of
his voice. Then he raised himself to a sitting posture, with his back
towards us and his face turned upward to the heavens, and, lo, a marvel!
There arose a thread of smoke, light, filmy, then thicker and blacker,
till soon there poured upward a black column, in thickness as a man's
leg; and while we gazed there leaped into the smoke-pillar a ball of
flame, and as it did so it gave forth a booming roar even as the thunder
of the _bai-nbai_ [Cannon], which