appointed I sat near the King, in the midst of the other
_izinduna_, while the witch doctors began in their usual way.

The open space within the great kraal was densely packed, save that room
was left for the wild dancing and other ceremonies employed by the
_izanusi_. These ran up and down, mouthing and bellowing, and shaking
the ornaments of their calling--bladders filled with blood, festoons of
entrails of sacrificed beasts, bunches of feathers and bird's claws, and
snakes and lizards. Now and again they would halt, and pointing with
their wands, tipped with giraffe tail, at some one in the crowd, would
name him, calling, out a string of instances of witch dealing. This one
held converse with a black baboon, that one slept all day and only moved
out at night, another was reputed to eat snakes, and so forth. All so
named were immediately led forth to the place of slaughter; but I
noticed that among them was no person of any consequence. The witch
doctors, to all appearance, were destroying them out of sheer wanton
craving for blood.

Dingane was growing impatient. His brows were wrinkled into a heavy
frown. Not for such a well-worn exhibition as this, surely, had the
bulk of the nation been convened. If so, then indeed it would go ill
with Tola and his following. This was running in the mind of the King;
and I, who sat near him, could see into his thoughts.

Now the witch doctors ceased in their mouthings, and suddenly, from
behind them, appeared a band of girls. There might have been three
score of them, and they seemed to have been chosen from the handsomest
and finest of the nation. They were arrayed in the richest beadwork,
and wore wreaths of green leaves upon their heads and twined around
their shapely limbs. A strange band, indeed, to spring up suddenly from
the midst of those wizard-hounds of blood and of death.

They advanced, swaying to a measured dancing step, and softly singing.
A deep murmur of amazement and delight arose from all; for this was a
fair and goodly sight, and all welcomed it as a relief from the grim
hideousness of the witch doctors. A weight of fear seemed lifted from
the minds of many. These, surely, were not here to doom to death.

But as their singing rose louder and louder, as I caught the burden of
their song, I, for one, felt by no means so sure. They sang of a nation
cursed by an evil blight, of the counsels of strangers, of the first
repulse the great Zulu power