So Umslopogaas ate, and little by little his health returned to
him--every day a little. And afterwards, as they sat at night by the
fire in the cave they spoke together.

"How are you named?" asked Umslopogaas of the other.

"I am named Galazi the Wolf," he answered, "and I am of Zulu blood--ay,
of the blood of Chaka the king; for the father of Senzangacona, the
father of Chaka, was my great-grandfather."

"Whence came you, Galazi?"

"I came from Swaziland--from the tribe of the Halakazi, which I should
rule. This is the story: Siguyana, my grandfather, was a younger
brother of Senzangacona, the father of Chaka. But he quarrelled with
Senzangacona, and became a wanderer. With certain of the people of the
Umtetwa he wandered into Swaziland, and sojourned with the Halakazi
tribe in their great caves; and the end of it was that he killed the
chief of the tribe and took his place. After he was dead, my father
ruled in his place; but there was a great party in the tribe that hated
his rule because he was of the Zulu race, and it would have set up a
chief of the old Swazi blood in his place. Still, they could not do
this, for my father's hand was heavy on the people. Now I was the only
son of my father by his head wife, and born to be chief after him, and
therefore those of the Swazi party, and they were many and great, hated
me also. So matters stood till last year in the winter, and then my
father set his heart on killing twenty of the headmen, with their wives
and children, because he knew that they plotted against him. But the
headmen learned what was to come, and they prevailed upon a wife of my
father, a woman of their own blood, to poison him. So she poisoned him
in the night and in the morning it was told me that my father lay sick
and summoned me, and I went to him. In his hut I found him, and he was
writhing with pain.

"'What is it, my father?' I said. 'Who has done this evil?'

"'It is this, my son,' he gasped, 'that I am poisoned, and she stands
yonder who has done the deed.' And he pointed to the woman, who stood at
the side of the hut near the door, her chin upon her breast, trembling
as she looked upon the fruit of her wickedness.

"Now the girl was young and fair, and we had been friends, yet I say
that I did not pause, for my heart was mad within me. I did not pause,
but, seizing my spear, I ran at her, and, though she cried for mercy, I
killed her with the spear.

"'That was well done, Galazi!' s