he thing crept forward, and I knew it for Zikali. He
reached the side of the bed and squatted down in his toad-like
fashion, then, again like a chameleon, without moving his head
turned his deep and glowing eyes towards me.

"Hail, O Macumazahn," he said in his low voice. "Did I not
promise you long ago that you should be with me at the last, and
are you not with me and another?"

"It seems so, Zikali," I answered. "But why do you not send for
the white doctors to cure the king?"

"All the doctors, white and black, in the whole world cannot cure
him, Macumazahn. The Spirits call him and he dies. At his call
I came fast and far, but even I cannot cure him--although because
of him I myself must die."

"Why?" I asked.

"Look at me, Macumazahn, and say if I am one who should travel.
Well, all come to their end at last, even the
'Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born.'"

Cetewayo lifted his head and looked at him, then said heavily--

"Perchance it would have been better for our House if that end
had been sooner. Now that I lie dying many sayings concerning
you come into my mind that I had forgotten. Moreover, Opener of
Roads, I never sent for you, whoever may have done so, and it was
not until after you came here that the great pain seized me. How
did it happen," he went on with gathering force, "that the white
men caught me in the secret place where you told me I should
hide? Who pointed out that hidden hole to the white men? But
what does it matter now?"

"Nothing at all, O Son of Panda," answered Zikali, "even less
than it matters how I escaped the spear-head hidden in your robe,
yonder in my hut in the Black Kloof where, had it not been for a
certain spirit that stood between you and me, you would have
murdered me. Tell me, Son of Panda, during these last three days
have you thought at all of your brother Umbelazi, and of certain
other brethren of yours whom you killed at the battle of the
Tugela, when the white man here led the charge of the Amawombe
against your regiments and ate up three of them?"

Cetewayo groaned but said nothing. I think he had become too
faint to speak.

"Listen, Son of Panda," went on Zikali in an intense and hissing
voice. "Many, many years ago, before Senzangacona, your
grandfather, saw the light--who knows how long before--a man was
born of high blood in the Dwandwe tribe, which man was a dwarf.
Chaka the Black One conquered the Dwandwe, but this man of high
bloo