"'What is this noise?' he asked. 'Why cry ye _The king! The king!_'

"Then Twala, his twin brother, born of the same woman, and in the same
hour, ran to him, and taking him by the hair, stabbed him through the
heart with his knife. And the people being fickle, and ever ready to
worship the rising sun, clapped their hands and cried, '_Twala is
king!_ Now we know that Twala is king!'"

"And what became of Imotu's wife and her son Ignosi? Did Twala kill
them too?"

"Nay, my lord. When she saw that her lord was dead the queen seized the
child with a cry and ran away. Two days afterward she came to a kraal
very hungry, and none would give her milk or food, now that her lord
the king was dead, for all men hate the unfortunate. But at nightfall a
little child, a girl, crept out and brought her corn to eat, and she
blessed the child, and went on towards the mountains with her boy
before the sun rose again, and there she must have perished, for none
have seen her since, nor the child Ignosi."

"Then if this child Ignosi had lived he would be the true king of the
Kukuana people?"

"That is so, my lord; the sacred snake is round his middle. If he lives
he is king; but, alas! he is long dead."

"See, my lord," and Infadoos pointed to a vast collection of huts
surrounded by a fence, which was in its turn encircled by a great
ditch, that lay on the plain beneath us. "That is the kraal where the
wife of Imotu was last seen with the child Ignosi. It is there that we
shall sleep to-night, if, indeed," he added doubtfully, "my lords sleep
at all upon this earth."

"When we are among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the
Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address
Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied
with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping
in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was
walking along immediately behind me, and very evidently had been
listening with the greatest interest to my conversation with Infadoos.
The expression on his face was most curious, and gave me the idea of a
man who was struggling with partial success to bring something long ago
forgotten back into his mind.

All this while we had been pressing on at a good rate towards the
undulating plain beneath us. The mountains we had crossed now loomed
high above our heads, and Sheba's Breasts were veiled modestly in
diaphanous wr