ey expected to read an omen. I too watched them out of
the corners of my eyes, wondering whether I should escape from
their savage company alive. If once the blood lust broke out
among them, it seemed to me that I should have about as much
chance as a chopped fox among a pack of hungry hounds.

Once out of the town we saw no one until we came to the circle of
guards which I have already mentioned, who stood there like an
endless line of black statues. In answer to their challenge Goza
gave some complicated password in which my name occurred, whereon
they opened out and let us through. Then we marched on to the
mouth of the kloof. The place was very dark, for now the sun was
down in the west and the moon in the east was cut off from us by
the hills and would not be visible here for half an hour or more.
Presently I saw a spot of light. It was a small fire burning
near the tongue of rock which I have described.

At a distance, in front of the fire on the patch of prepared
ground, squatted a number of men, between twenty and thirty of
them, in a semicircle. They were wrapped up in karosses and
blankets, and in their centre sat a large figure on a chair of
wood.

"The King and the Great Council," whispered Goza.

One of them looked round and saw us. At some sign from the king
he rose, and against the fire I saw that he was the Prime
Minister, Umnyamana. He came to me and, with a nod of
recognition, conducted me some paces to the right where a
euphorbia tree grew among the rank herbage. Here I found a stool
placed ready on which I sat down, Goza, who of course was not of
the Council, squatting at my side in the grass.

Now I found that I was so situated that I could not well be seen
from the fire, or even from the rock above it, while I, by moving
my head a little, could see both quite clearly. After this as
the last reflection from the sunk sun faded, the darkness
increased until nothing remained visible except the fire and the
massive outline of the rock behind. The silence was complete,
for none of the Council spoke. They were so still that they
might have been dead, so still that a beetle suddenly booming
past me made me start as though it had been a bullet. The
general impression was almost mesmeric. I felt as though I were
going to sleep and yet my mind remained painfully awake, so that
I was able to think things out.

I understood clearly that the body of men to my left had come
together to de