ut one"--here everybody turned and stared towards
me, yes, even Zikali whom nothing else had seemed to move, till I
wished that the ground would swallow me up--"caused the war
between me and my brother Umbelazi whose blood earth will not
swallow nor suns dry--"

"How can that be, O King?" broke in Umnyamana the Prime Minister.
"How can any of your race sit in your seat while you still live?
Then indeed there would be war, war between tribe and tribe and
Zulu and Zulu till none were left, and the white hyenas from
Natal would come and chew our bones and with them the Boers that
have passed the Vaal. See now. Why is this Nyanga (i.e.
witch-doctor) here?" and he pointed to Zikali beyond the fire.
"Why has the Opener of Roads been brought from the Black Kloof
which he has not left for years? Is it not that he may give us
counsel in our need and show us a sign that his counsel is good,
whether it be for war or peace? Then when he has made divination
and given the counsel and shown the sign, then, O King, do you
speak the word of war or peace, and send it to the Queen by
yonder white man, and by that word we, the people, will abide."

At this suggestion, which I had no doubt was made by some secret
agreement between Umnyamana and Zikali, Cetewayo seemed to grasp.
Perhaps this was because it postponed for a little while the
dreadful moment of decision, or perhaps because he hoped that in
the eyes of the nation it would shift the responsibility from his
shoulders to those of the Spirits speaking through the lips of
their prophet. At any rate he nodded and answered--

"It is so. Let the Opener of Roads open us a road through the
forests and the swamps and the rocks of doubt, danger and fear.
Let him give us a sign that it is a good road on which we may
safely travel, and let him tell us whether I shall live to walk
that road and what I shall meet thereon. I promise him in return
the greatest fee that ever yet was paid to a doctor in Zululand."

Now Zikali lifted his big head, shook his grey locks, and opening
his wide mouth as though he expected manna to fall into it from
the sky, he laughed out loud.

"O-ho-ho," he laughed, "Oho-ho-ho-o, it is worth while to have
lived so long when life has brought me to such an hour as this.
What is it that my ears hear? That I, the Indwande dwarf, I whom
Chaka named 'The-Thing-that-never-should-have-been-born,' I, one
of the race conquered and despised by the Zulus, am here to