Fat; what of this Slaughterer? Does
he come with his people to lay the axe Groan-Maker in my hands?"

"Nay, O King, he comes not. He met me with scorn, and with scorn
he drove me from his kraal. Moreover, as I went I was seized by the
servants of Zinita, she whom I wooed, but who is now the wife of the
Slaughterer, and laid on my face upon the ground and beaten cruelly
while Zinita numbered the strokes."

"Hah!" said the king. "And what were the words of this puppy?"

"These were his words, O King: 'Bulalio the Slaughterer, who sits
beneath the shadow of the Witch Mountain, to Bulalio the Slaughterer who
sits in the kraal Duguza--To thee I pay no tribute; if thou wouldst
have the axe Groan-Maker, come to the Ghost Mountain and take it. This
I promise thee: thou shalt look on a face thou knowest, for there is one
there who would be avenged for the blood of a certain Mopo.'"

Now, while Masilo told this tale I had seen two things--first, that a
little piece of stick was thrust through the straw of the fence, and,
secondly, that the regiment of the Bees was swarming on the slope
opposite to the kraal in obedience to the summons I had sent them in
the name of Umhlangana. The stick told me that the princes were hidden
behind the fence waiting the signal, and the coming of the regiment that
it was time to do the deed.

When Masilo had spoken Chaka sprang up in fury. His eyes rolled, his
face worked, foam flew from his lips, for such words as these had never
offended his ears since he was king, and Masilo knew him little, else he
had not dared to utter them.

For a while he gasped, shaking his small spear, for at first he could
not speak. At length he found words:--

"The dog," he hissed, "the dog who dares thus to spit in my face!
Hearken all! As with my last breath I command that this Slaughterer
be torn limb from limb, he and all his tribe! And thou, thou darest to
bring me this talk from a skunk of the mountains. And thou, too, Mopo,
thy name is named in it. Well, of thee presently. Ho! Umxamama, my
servant, slay me this slave of a messenger, beat out his brains with thy
stick. Swift! swift!"

Now, the old chief Umxamama sprang up to do the king's bidding, but he
was feeble with age, and the end of it was that Masilo, being mad with
fear, killed Umxamama, not Umxamama Masilo. Then Inguazonca, brother of
Unandi, Mother of the Heavens, fell upon Masilo and ended him, but was
hurt himself in so doing. Now I looked a