hese little white men; my _impis_ shall eat them up. I have
said!"

Again the withered aged man interposed, evidently in the character of
a peacemaker. Hadden could not hear his talk, but he rose and pointed
towards the sea, while from his expressive gestures and sorrowful mien,
he seemed to be prophesying disaster should a certain course of action
be followed.

For a while the king listened to him, then he sprang from his seat, his
eyes literally ablaze with rage.

"Hearken," he cried to the counsellor; "I have guessed it for long, and
now I am sure of it. You are a traitor. You are Sompseu's[*] dog, and
the dog of the Natal Government, and I will not keep another man's dog
to bite me in my own house. Take him away!"

[*] Sir Theophilus Shepstone's.

A slight involuntary murmur rose from the ring of _indunas_, but the
old man never flinched, not even when the soldiers, who presently would
murder him, came and seized him roughly. For a few seconds, perhaps
five, he covered his face with the corner of the kaross he wore, then he
looked up and spoke to the king in a clear voice.

"O King," he said, "I am a very old man; as a youth I served under Chaka
the Lion, and I heard his dying prophecy of the coming of the white man.
Then the white men came, and I fought for Dingaan at the battle of the
Blood River. They slew Dingaan, and for many years I was the counsellor
of Panda, your father. I stood by you, O King, at the battle of the
Tugela, when its grey waters were turned to red with the blood of
Umbulazi your brother, and of the tens of thousands of his people.
Afterwards I became your counsellor, O King, and I was with you
when Sompseu set the crown upon your head and you made promises to
Sompseu--promises that you have not kept. Now you are weary of me, and
it is well; for I am very old, and doubtless my talk is foolish, as
it chances to the old. Yet I think that the prophecy of Chaka, your
great-uncle, will come true, and that the white men will prevail against
you and that through them you shall find your death. I would that I
might have stood in one more battle and fought for you, O King, since
fight you will, but the end which you choose is for me the best end.
Sleep in peace, O King, and farewell. _Bayete!_"[*]

[*] The royal salute of the Zulus.

For a space there was silence, a silence of expectation while men waited
to hear the tyrant reverse his judgment. But it did not please him to be
merci