d for weeks I could scarcely
walk at all, and six whole months passed before I really got my
strength again and became as I used to be. During those days I
often saw Anscombe and Heda, but only for a few minutes at a
time. Also occasionally Zikali would visit me, speaking a
little, generally about past history, or something of the sort,
but never of the war, and go away. At length one day he said to
me--

"Macumazahn, now I am sure you are going to live, a matter as to
which I was doubtful, even after you seemed to recover. For,
Macumazahn, you have endured three shocks, of which to-day I am
not afraid to talk to you. First there was that of the battle of
Isandhlwana where you were the last white man left alive."

"How do you know that, Zikali?" I asked.

"It does not matter. I do know. Did you not ride through the
Zulus who parted this way and that before you, shouting what you
could not understand? One of them you may remember even saluted
with his spear."

"I did, Zikali. Tell me, why did they behave thus, and what did
they shout?"

"I shall not tell you, Macumazahn. Think over it for the rest of
your life and conclude what you choose; it will not be so
wonderful as the truth. At least they did so, as a certain doll
I dressed up yonder in the Vale of Bones told you they would, she
whose advice you followed in riding towards Ulundi instead of
back to the river where you would have met your death, like so
many others of the white people."

"Who was that doll, Zikali?"

"Nay, ask me not. Perhaps it was Nombe, perhaps another. I have
forgotten. I am very old and my memory begins to play me strange
tricks. Still I recollect that she was a good doll, so like a
dead woman called Mameena that I could scarcely have known them
apart. Ah! that was a great game I played in the Vale of Bones,
was it not, Macumazahn?"

"Yes, Zikali, yet I do not understand why it was played."

"Being so young you still have the impatience of youth,
Macumazahn, although your hair grows white. Wait a while and you
will understand all. Well, you lay that night on the topmost
rock of Isandhlwana, and there you saw and heard strange things.
You heard the rest of the white soldiers come and lie down to
rest among their dead brothers, and depart again unharmed. Oh!
what fools are these Zulu generals nowadays. They send out an
impi to attack men behind walls, spears against rifles, and are
defeated. Had they kept that im