f the
White Hand and be forgotten, passing to a land where things do not die,
but live on forever, the Good with the Good, the Evil with the Evil. It
told of Life and of Death, of Joy and of Sorrow, of Time and of that sea
in which Time is but a floating leaf, and of why all these things are.
Many names also came into the song, and I knew but a few of them, yet my
own was there, and the name of Baleka and the name of Umslopogaas, and
the name of Chaka the Lion. But a little while did the voice sing, yet
all this was in the song--ay, and much more; but the meaning of the song
is gone from me, though I knew it once, and shall know it again when all
is done. The voice in the shadow sang on till the whole place was full
of the sound of its singing, and even the dead seemed to listen. Chaka
heard it and shook with fear, but his ears were deaf to its burden,
though mine were open.

The voice came nearer, and now in the shadow there was a faint glow of
light, like the glow that gathers on the six-days' dead. Slowly it drew
nearer, through the shadow, and as it came I saw that the shape of the
light was the shape of a woman. Now I could see it well, and I knew the
face of glory. My father, it was the face of the Inkosazana-y-Zulu, the
Queen of Heaven! She came towards us very slowly, gliding down the gulf
that was full of dead, and the path she trod was paved with the dead;
and as she came it seemed to me that shadows rose from the dead,
following her, the Queen of the Dead--thousands upon thousands of them.
And, ah! her glory, my father--the glory of her hair of molten gold--of
her eyes, that were as the noonday sky--the flash of her arms and
breast, that were like the driven snow, when it glows in the sunset. Her
beauty was awful to look on, but I am glad to have lived to see it as it
shone and changed in the shifting robe of light which was her garment.

Now she drew near to us, and Chaka sank upon the earth, huddled up
in fear, hiding his face in his hands; but I was not afraid, my
father--only the wicked need fear to look on the Queen of Heaven. Nay,
I was not afraid: I stood upright and gazed upon her glory face to face.
In her hand she held a little spear hafted with the royal wood: it was
the shadow of the spear that Chaka held in his hand, the same with which
he had slain his mother and wherewith he should himself be slain. Now
she ceased her singing, and stood before the crouching king and before
me, who was behind t