speak
a word which the Zulus dare not utter, which the King of the
Zulus dares not utter. O-ho-ho-ho! And what does the King offer
to me? A fee, a great fee for the word that shall paint the
Zulus red with blood or white with the slime of shame. Nay, I
take no fee that is the price of blood or shame. Before I speak
that word unknown--for as yet my heart has not heard it, and what
the heart has not heard the lips cannot shape--I ask but one
thing. It is an oath that whatever follows on the word, while
there is a Zulu left living in the world, I, the Voice of the
Spirits, shall be safe from hurt or from reproach, I and those of
my House and those over whom I throw my blanket, be they black or
be they white. That is my fee, without which I am silent."

"Izwa! We hear you. We swear it on behalf of the people," said
every councillor in the semi-circle in front of him; yes, and the
king said it also, stretching out his hand.

"Good," said Zikali, "it is an oath, it is an oath, sworn here
upon the bones of the dead. Evil-doers you call them, but I say
to you that many of those who sit before me have more evil in
their hearts than had those dead. Well, let it be proclaimed, O
King, and with it this--that ill shall it go with him who breaks
the oath, with his family, with his kraal and all with whom he
has to do.

"Now what is it you ask of me? First of all, counsel as to
whether you should fight the English Queen, a matter on which
you, the Great Ones, are evenly divided in opinion, as is the
nation behind you. O King, Indunas, and Captains, who am I that
I should judge of such a matter which is beyond my trade, a
matter of the world above and of men's bodies, not of the world
below and of men's spirits? Yet there was one who made the Zulu
people out of nothing, as a potter fashions a vessel from clay,
as a smith fashions an assegai out of the ore of the hills, yes,
and tempers it with human blood.* Chaka the Lion, the Wild
Beast, the King among Kings, the Conqueror. I knew Chaka as I
knew his father, yes, and _his_ father. Others still living knew
him also, say you, Sigananda there for instance," and he pointed
to the old chief who had spoken first. "Yes, Sigananda knew him
as a boy knows a great man, as a soldier knows a general. But I
knew his heart, aye, I shaped his heart, I was its thought. Had
it not been for me he would never have been great. Then he
wronged me"--here Zikali took up the skull w