od?"

"The blood of the guilty," he answered.

They turned and spoke each to each; the company of the men spoke to the
company of the women.

"The Lion of the Zulu seeks blood."

"He shall be fed!" screamed the women.

"The Lion of the Zulu smells blood."

"He shall see it!" screamed the women.

"His eyes search out the wizards."

"He shall count their dead!" screamed the women.

"Peace!" cried Chaka. "Waste not the hours in talk, but to the work.
Hearken! Wizards have bewitched me! Wizards have dared to smite blood
upon the gateways of the king. Dig in the burrows of the earth and
find them, ye rats! Fly through the paths of the air and find them, ye
vultures! Smell at the gates of the people and name them, ye jackals! ye
hunters in the night! Drag them from the caves if they be hidden, from
the distance if they be fled, from the graves if they be dead. To the
work! to the work! Show them to me truly, and your gifts shall be great;
and for them, if they be a nation, they shall be slain. Now begin. Begin
by companies of ten, for you are many, and all must be finished ere the
sun sink."

"It shall be finished, Father," they answered.

Then ten of the women stood forward, and at their head was the most
famous witch-doctress of that day--an aged woman named Nobela, a woman
to whose eyes the darkness was no evil, whose scent was keen as a dog's,
who heard the voices of the dead as they cried in the night, and spoke
truly of what she heard. All the other Isanusis, male and female, sat
down in a half-moon facing the king, but this woman drew forward, and
with her came nine of her sisterhood. They turned east and west, north
and south, searching the heavens; they turned east and west, north and
south, searching the earth; they turned east and west, north and south,
searching the hearts of men. Then they crept round and round the great
ring like cats; then they threw themselves upon the earth and smelt it.
And all the time there was silence, silence deep as midnight, and in
it men hearkened to the beating of their hearts; only now and again the
vultures shrieked in the trees.

At length Nobela spoke:--

"Do you smell him, sisters?"

"We smell him," they answered.

"Does he sit in the east, sisters?"

"He sits in the east," they answered.

"Is he the son of a stranger, sisters?"

"He is the son of a stranger."

Then they crept nearer, crept on their hands and knees, till they were
within ten paces of wh