would have been dead, had it not pleased Him Whom I serve, working
through me, His messenger, to bring you back to look upon the sun. Thank
Him, therefore, and worship Him, for He alone is Master of the Earth,"
and he held the crucifix before his eyes.

The humbled monarch lifted his hand--he who for many years had made
obeisance to none--and saluted the symbol, saying:--

"Messenger, I thank Him and I worship Him, though I know Him not. Say
now, how did His magic work upon me to make me sick to death and to
recover me?"

"By the hand of man, King, and by the virtues that lie hid in Nature.
Did you not drink of a cup, and were not many things mixed in the
draught? Was it not but now in your mind to speak words that should
bring down the head of pride and evil, and lift up the head of truth and
goodness?"

"O White Man, how know you these things?" gasped the king.

"I know them, it is enough. Say, who was it that stirred the bowl, King,
and who gave you to drink?"

Now Umsuka staggered to his feet, and cried aloud in a voice that was
thick with rage:--

"By my head and the heads of my fathers I smell the plot! My son, the
Prince Hafela, has learned my counsel, and would have slain me before I
said words that should set him beneath the feet of Nodwengo. Seize him,
captains, and let him be brought before me for judgment!"

Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but
Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has
rarely run before--his face set towards that fastness in the mountains
where he could find refuge among his mother's tribesmen and the
regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the
king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was
disinherited.

"He is fled," said one; "I saw him go."

"Pursue him and bring him back, dead or alive!" thundered the king.
"A hundred head of cattle to the man who lays hand upon him before he
reaches the _impi_ of the North, for they will fight for him!"

"Stay!" broke in Owen. "Once before this day I prayed of you, King, to
show mercy, and you refused it. Will you refuse me a second time? Leave
him his life who has lost all else."

"That he may rebel against me? Well, White Man, I owe you much, and for
this time your wisdom shall be my guide, though my heart speaks against
such gentleness. Hearken, councillors and people, this is my decree:
that Hafela, my son, who would h