use Chaka the Lion named you the
'Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born' and killed your wives,
for which crime you brought about the death of Chaka. Thirdly,
because you have matched your single wit for many years against
all the power of the royal House and yet kept your life in you,
notably when Panda threatened you in my presence at the trial of
one who has 'gone down,' and you told him to kill you if he
dared. Now you would prove that you were right by causing your
cunning to triumph over the royal House."

"True, quite true, O Macumazahn. You have a good memory,
Macumazahn, especially for anything that has to do with that
woman who has 'gone down.' I sent her down, but how was she
named, Macumazahn? I forget, I forget, whose mind being old,
falls suddenly into black pits of darkness--like her who went
down."

He paused and we stared at each other through the veil of fire.
Then as I made no answer, he went on--

"Oh! I remember now, she was called Mameena, was she not, a name
taken from the wailing of the wind? Hark! It is wailing now."

I listened; it was, and I shivered to hear it, since but a minute
before the night had been quite still. Yes, the wind moaned and
wailed about the rocks of the Black Kloof.

"Well, enough of her. Why trouble about the dead when there are
so many to be sent to join them? Macumazahn, the hour is at
hand. The fool Cetewayo has quarrelled with your people, the
English, and on my counsel. He has sent and killed women, or
allowed others to do so, across the river in Natal. His
messengers came to me asking what he should do. I answered,
'Shall a king of the blood of Chaka fear to allow his own wicked
ones to be slain because they have stepped across a strip of
water, and still call himself king of the Zulus?' So those women
were dragged back across the water and killed; and now the
Queen's man from the Cape asks many things, great fines of
cattle, the giving up of the slayers, and that an end should be
made of the Zulu army, which is to lay down its spears and set to
hoeing like the old women in the kraals."

"And if the king refuses, what then, Zikali?"

"Then, Macumazahn, the Queen's man will declare war on the Zulus;
already he gathers his soldiers for the war."

"Will Cetewayo refuse, Zikali?"

"I do not know. His mind swings this way and that, like a pole
balanced on a rock. The ends of the pole are weighted with much
counsel, and it hangs so even that