kraal where once I shot the vultures
for my life and those of my companions.* Even in the daytime
people gave it a wide berth, and at night nothing would induce
them to approach it, at any rate alone.

[*--See the book called _Marie,_ by H. Rider Haggard.]

Here to one side of and near the root of the tongue of land of
which I have spoken, the huts that Zikali had demanded for
himself and his company were being rapidly built, close to a
spring of water, by a large body of men who laboured as though
they wished to be done with their task. Also about half way up
the donga, for really it was nothing more, at a distance of
perhaps five and twenty paces from its flat point whence the
condemned were hurled, a circular space of ground had been
cleared and levelled which was large enough to accommodate fifty
or sixty men. On this space, Goza told me, the King and the
Council were to sit when they came to seek light from Zikali.

In my heart I reflected that the light they were likely to get
from him would be such as may be supposed to be thrown by hell
fire. For be it remembered I knew what these people never seemed
to understand, that Zikali was the most bitter of their enemies.
To begin with, he was of Undwandwe blood, one of the people whom
the great king Chaka had destroyed. Then this same Chaka had
robbed him of his wives and murdered his children, in revenge for
which he had plotted the slaying of Chaka, as he did that of his
brothers, Umhlangana and Dingaan, the latter of whom he involved
in a quarrel with the Boers. Subsequently he brought about the
war between the princes Cetewayo and Umbelazi, in which I played
a part.

Now I was certain that he intended to bring about another war
between the English and the Zulus, knowing well that in the end
the latter would be destroyed, and with them the royal House of
Senzangacona which he had sworn to level with the dust. Had he
not told me as much years ago, and was he one to go back upon his
word? Had he not used Mameena with her beauty and ambitions as
his tool, and when she was of no further service to him, given
her to death, as he had used scores of others and in due season
given them to death? Was I not myself perhaps one of those tools
destined to be thrown into the pit of doom when my turn came,
though in what way I could help his plots was more than I could
see, since he knew well that I should do my best to oppose him?
Oh! I had half a mind to go to C