w not," answered Dingane, speaking pleasantly. "When two great
bulls stand looking at each other over one fence, are they friends for
long?" And we all murmured aloud in praise of the wisdom of the King.

But the Amabuna replied that the land on each side of the proposed
boundary was large enough for both.

"The kraal in which stands each of those bulls is large enough for him,"
said Dingane, still speaking pleasantly; "yet it is not long before one
of them is through the fence to drive out the other. Then he rules over
both kraals."

What the King said was very true; yet it would not be so in this case,
urged the Amabuna, for there could be no reason why either should seek a
quarrel with the other. The people of their race sought a quarrel with
no man. They only desired to be let alone.

"Why, then, did ye leave your own land?" asked Dingane. "Why did ye not
stay the other side of Kwahlamba?"

We, who sat around the King, narrowly watching the countenances of the
Amabuna, could see that these men did not like that question at all.
They did not answer for a moment; then they said, through him who spoke
as their tongue, for they knew not ours:

"We crossed the mountains in obedience to the will of God. It was His
will that we should seek out a new land for our wives and our children,
and His finger it was that guided us hither. We are even as the People
of God in old times, who went to dwell in the land which He had promised
them; and, even as they, we are ruled and led by the Great Book."

Now we who listened could have laughed aloud, for we had heard something
of that people of old to which the Amabuna referred. Many a tale had
the _Umfundisi_, who dwelt hard by, told us of that people; how it swept
onward, a fierce and unsparing scourge, destroying and enslaving tribes
and nations, and seizing their flocks and their herds and their women;
and we liked to listen to such tales, for they were those of a right
valiant warrior race--indeed, me they reminded of our fierce and
destroying flight under Umzilikazi. But now we thought those Amabuna
must be fools, indeed; for if they were the children of that people,
still less did we desire them as neighbours.

"So ye are the people of God, brothers?" said the King softly, his head
on one side.

"That is so, King," they answered, looking upward solemnly.

"Why then, indeed, should we be as brothers, for _we_ are the People of
the Heavens," [Such is the liter