more
privileged than others, and often bolder in interfering in his
counsels, bent down where she was sitting until her forehead touched
the ground.

He glared speechlessly at Kondwana and Senzanga, who, having gone far
beyond the limit of experience where Fear dwells, looked back quietly
at his face. When he at length found his voice, it came in the
semblance of a gasping roar:

"Take them away--Dogs."

Like men released from a spell, the executioners sprang on Kondwana and
Senzanga and dragged them away, two men seizing each of them--one by
each arm. Kondwana was unable to walk, so was dragged along the ground
towards the place of execution, which was at the back of the Royal
Kraal. When they had got out of the King's sight, even the executioners
were moved to pity, so they lifted him on to the shoulders, and thus
carried him to the shambles.

When Kondwana reached the place of execution, Senzanga was already
dead, his neck broken by his head having been twisted round from the
back, the usual mode of dispatch. They set Kondwana down on the
ground, and then one of the executioners seized his head and twisted
it; but it seemed as if on account of the tendons being so relaxed from
emaciation, the spine would not dislocate, although twisted beyond the
usual dislocation point, so the executioner sprang up, and seizing a
club, crushed the skull in with one blow.

So Kondwana, even at the very last, tasted more than his proper share
of the bitterness of death.

GHAMBA.

"That darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind."

FAERIE QUEENE.

I

WHEN Corporal Francis Dollond and Trooper James Franks of the Natal
Mounted Police, overstayed their ten days' leave of absence from the
camp on the Upper Tugela, in the early part of 1883, everybody was much
surprised; they being two of the best conducted and most methodical men
in the force. But the weeks and then the months went by without
anything whatever being heard of them, so they were officially recorded
as deserters. Nevertheless, none of their comrades really believed that
these men had deserted; each one felt there was something mysterious
about the circumstance of their disappearance. They had applied for
leave for the alleged purpose of visiting Pietermaritzburg. They
started on foot, stating their intention of walking to Estcourt, hiring
horses from natives there, and proceedin