of them put fear into Hafela, who, it was
rumoured, had now given up all idea of attack.

Some there were, however, who looked upon these changes with little
love, and Hokosa was one of them. After his defeat in the duel by fire,
for a while his spirit was crushed. Hitherto he had more or less been
a believer in the protecting influence of his own god or fetish, who
would, as he thought, hold his priests scatheless from the lightning.
Often and often had he stood in past days upon that plain while the
great tempests broke around his head, and returned thence unharmed,
attributing to sorcery a safety that was really due to chance. From time
to time indeed a priest was killed; but, so his companions held, the
misfortune resulted invariably from the man's neglect of some rite, or
was a mark of the anger of the heavens.

Now Hokosa had lived to see all these convictions shattered: he had seen
the lightning, which he pretended to be able to control, roll back
upon him from the foot of the Christian cross, reducing his god to
nothingness and his companions to corpses.

At first Hokosa was dismayed, but as time went on hope came back to him.
Stripped of his offices and power, and from the greatest in the nation,
after the king, become one of small account, still no harm or violence
was attempted towards him. He was left wealthy and in peace, and living
thus he watched and listened with open eyes and ears, waiting till the
tide should turn. It seemed that he would not have long to wait, for
reasons that have been told.

"Why do you sit here like a vulture on a rock," asked the girl Noma,
whom he had taken to wife, "when you might be yonder with Hafela,
preparing him by your wisdom for the coming war?"

"Because I am a king-vulture, and I wait for the sick bull to die," he
answered, pointing to the Great Place beneath him. "Say, why should I
bring Hafela to prey upon a carcase I have marked down for my own?"

"Now you speak well," said Noma; "the bull suffers from a strange
disease, and when he is dead another must lead the herd."

"That is so," answered her husband, "and, therefore, I am patient."

It was shortly after this conversation that the old king died, with
results very different from those which Hokosa had anticipated. Although
he was a Christian, to his surprise Nodwengo showed that he was also a
strong ruler, and that there was little chance of the sceptre slipping
from his hand--none indeed while the white