to look again upon
your king's face. Begone now, and do your worst."

For a moment the three Matabele seemed to be frightened, and Benita
heard one of them say to his companions:

"The Wizard has bewitched us! He has bewitched the Great Elephant and
all his people! Shall we kill him?"

But quickly shaking off his fears their spokesman laughed, and answered:

"So that is what you have brought the white people here for, old
traitor--to plot against the throne of Lobengula."

He wheeled round and stared at Mr. Clifford and Jacob Meyer; then added:

"Good, Grey-beard and Black-Beard: I myself will put you both to such a
death as you have never heard of, and as for the girl, since she is well
favoured, she shall brew the king's beer, and be numbered amongst the
king's wives--unless, indeed, he is pleased to give her to me."

In an instant the thing was done! At the man's words about Benita,
Meyer, who had been listening to his threats and bombast unconcerned,
suddenly seemed to awake. His dark eyes flashed, his pale face turned
cruel. Snatching the revolver from his belt he seemed to point and fire
it with one movement, and down--dead or dying--went the Matabele.

Men did not stir, they only stared. Accustomed as they were to death in
that wild land, the suddenness of this deed surprised them. The contrast
between the splendid, brutal savage who had stood before them a moment
ago, and the limp, black thing going to sleep upon the ground, was
strange enough to move their imaginations. There he lay, and there, over
him, the smoking pistol in his hand, Meyer stood and laughed.

Benita felt that the act was just, and the awful punishment deserved.
Yet that laugh of Jacob's jarred upon her, for in it she thought she
heard the man's heart speaking; and oh, its voice was merciless! Surely
Justice should not laugh when her sword falls!

"Behold, now," said the Molimo in his still voice, pointing at the dead
Matabele with his finger; "do I speak lies, or is it true that this
man shall not look more upon his king's face? Well, as it was with
the servant, so it shall be with the lord, only more slowly. It is the
decree of the Munwali, spoken by the voice of his Mouth, the Molimo of
Bambatse. Go, children of Lobengula, and bear with you as an offering
this first-fruit of the harvest that the white men shall reap among the
warriors of his people."

The thin voice died away, and there was silence so intense that Benita
though