lade of the
moonlit forest.

"_Whau_! It stinks. Let them take it away," said Umzilikazi at length,
spitting in disgust, as a swarm of flies came buzzing about his face.
"And now, Untuswa, this thing will trouble the land no more?"

"No more, Great Great One."

"Ha! That is well. And now by virtue of what _muti_ didst thou triumph
over this evil thing of witchcraft?"

"By the virtue of no _muti_ save that of the spear of the King, O
Elephant," I answered, with a glance backward at where I had deposited
the great assegai, the erewhile royal gift.

I thought the answer seemed to please him, then not; for his expression
changed as though reading into my words a hidden meaning.

"But it has taken long to rid the land of this thing, Untuswa," he said,
looking at me with his head bent sideways, and speaking in a soft tone.

"That is so, Great Great One. But the thing was both crafty and
fierce."

"Yet not alone didst thou slay it, as my conditions were," he went on,
pointing at me with his short-handled spear.

"Alone indeed did I slay it, Serpent of Wisdom," I answered.

"Now thou liest, son of Ntelani. What of the slaves who were with
thee?"

"They were but bait for the ghost-bull, Divider of the Sun; and both
were duly slain by it," I replied. But now I knew my feet were standing
on slippery ground indeed--for never for a long time past had Umzilikazi
spoken to me in that tone, and for a longer time still, in the sight and
hearing of all men.

"And what of thy slave, Jambula?" went on the King. "Was he not armed?"

"No part did he take in slaying the thing, Father of the Wise. His part
lay in running away."

"Yet he was armed, and my condition laid down that no armed force should
accompany thee."

"_Au_! Now I would ask the Great Great One, the leader of the nations
in war, whether one man, and he a slave, constitutes an armed force?" I
replied, fully aware that whatever was in the King's mind towards me,
lack of courage never yet found favour in that mind.

"Let be, then," he said. "For that question we will let it rest. But
say then, son of Ntelani--what of the moon? That this thing should be
slain before the full of the moon--was not that one of my conditions?
Yet the moon has been full these two nights."

"But the thing was so slain, Black Elephant. Before the moon was full,
was it slain."

"But it should have been brought here by the full of the moon--the head,
even as now. Well