art of it which had been Marnham's room. The iron safe that
stood in the corner had been taken away, but the legs of the
bedstead remained. Also not far from it, over grown with running
plants, was a little heap which I took to be the ashes of his
desk, for bits of burnt wood protruded. I grubbed among them
with my foot and riding crop and presently came across the
remains of a charred human skull. Then I departed in a hurry.

My way took me through the Yellow-wood grove, past the horns of
the blue wildebeeste which still lay there, past that mud-hole
also into which Rodd had fallen dead. Here, however, I made no
more search, who had seen enough of bones. To this day I do not
know whether he still lies beneath the slimy ooze, or was removed
and buried.

Also I saw the site of our wagon camp where the Basutos attacked
us. But I will have done with these reminiscences which induce
melancholy, though really there is no reason why they should.

Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe--everything wears out,
everything crumbles, everything vanishes--in the words of the
French proverb that my friend Sir Henry Curtis is so fond of
quoting, that at last I wrote it down in my pocket-book, only to
remember afterwards that when I was a boy I had heard it from the
lips of an old scamp of a Frenchman, of the name of Leblanc, who
once gave me and another lessons in the Gallic tongue. But of
him I have already written in _Marie,_ which is the first chapter
in the Book of the fall of the Zulus. That headed _Child of
Storm_ is the second. These pages form the third and last.

Ah! indeed, tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe!

CHAPTER XXIII

THE KRAAL JAZI

Now I shall pass over all the Zulu record of the next four years,
since after all it has nothing to do with my tale and I do not
pretend to be writing a history.

Sir Garnet Wolseley set up his Kilkenny cat Government in
Zululand, or the Home Government did it for him, I do not know
which. In place of one king, thirteen chiefs were erected who
got to work to cut the throats of each other and of the people.

As I expected would be the case, Zikali informed the military
authorities of the secret hiding-place in the Ingome Forest where
he suggested to Cetewayo that he should refuge. The ex-king was
duly captured there and taken first to the Cape and then to
England, where, after the disgrace of poor Sir Bartle Frere, an
agitation had been set on foot on