it is possible that there would never
have been any hostilities. All I can plead is, that I acted for
the best and Fate would have it so. Another moment and the
chance was gone.

The gate opened and a body-servant appeared announcing that one
of the great captains with some of his officers waited to see the
king. Cetewayo made a sign, whereon the servant called out
something, and they entered, three or four of them, saluting
loudly. Seeing me they stopped and stared, whereon Cetewayo
shortly, but with much clearness, repeated to them and to an
induna who accompanied them, what he had already said to me,
namely that I was his guest, sent for by him that he might use me
as a messenger if he thought fit. He added that the man who
dared to speak a word against me, or even to look at me askance,
should pay the price with his life, however high his station, and
he commanded that the heralds should proclaim this his decree
throughout Ulundi and the neighbouring kraals. Then he held out
his hand to me in token of friendship, bidding me to "go softly"
and come to see him whenever I wished, and dismissed me in charge
of the induna, one of the captains and some soldiers.

Within five minutes of reaching my hut I heard a loud-voiced
crier proclaiming the order of the king and knew that I had no
more to fear.

CHAPTER XIV

THE VALLEY OF BONES

The week that followed my interview with Cetewayo was indeed a
miserable time for me. For myself, as I have said, I had no
fear, for the king's orders were strictly obeyed. Moreover, the
tale of what had happened to the brute who wished to hunt me down
in the cattle-kraal had travelled far and wide and none sought to
share his fate. My hut was inviolate and well supplied with
necessary food, as was my mare, and I could wander where I liked
and talk with whom I would. I could even ride to exercise the
horse, though this I did very sparingly and only in the immediate
neighbourhood of the town for fear of exciting suspicion or
meeting Zulus whom the king's word had not reached. Indeed on
these occasions I was always accompanied by a guard of
swift-footed and armed soldiers sent "to protect me," or more
probably to kill me if I did anything that seemed suspicious.

In the course of my rambles I met sundry natives whom I had known
in the old days, some of them a long while ago. They all seemed
glad to see me and were quite ready to talk of past times, but of