t, for your father
is no more! He who nursed you is no more! The king is dead! now earth
and heaven will come together, for the king is dead!"

"How so, Mopo?" cried the leader of the Bees. "How is our father dead?"

"He is dead by the hand of a wicked wanderer named Masilo, who, when
he was doomed to die by the king, snatched this assegai from the king's
hand and stabbed him; and afterwards, before he could be cut down
himself by us three, the princes and myself, he killed the chiefs
Inguazonca and Umxamama also. Draw near and look on him who was the
king; it is the command of Dingaan and Umhlangana, the kings, that you
draw near and look on him who was the king, that his death at the hand
of Masilo may be told through all the land."

"You are better at making of kings, Mopo, than at the saving of one who
was your king from the stroke of a wanderer," said the leader of the
Bees, looking at me doubtfully.

But his words passed unheeded, for some of the captains went forward to
look on the Great One who was dead, and some, together with most of
the soldiers, ran this way and that, crying in their fear that now the
heaven and earth would come together, and the race of man would cease to
be, because Chaka, the king, was dead.

Now, my father, how shall I, whose days are few, tell you of all the
matters that happened after the dead of Chaka? Were I to speak of them
all they would fill many books of the white men, and, perhaps, some of
them are written down there. For this reason it is, that I may be brief,
I have only spoken of a few of those events which befell in the reign of
Chaka; for my tale is not of the reign of Chaka, but of the lives of a
handful of people who lived in those days, and of whom I and Umslopogaas
alone are left alive--if, indeed, Umslopogaas, the son of Chaka, is
still living on the earth. Therefore, in a few words I will pass over
all that came about after the fall of Chaka and till I was sent down by
Dingaan, the king, to summon him to surrender to the king who was called
the Slaughterer and who ruled the People of the Axe. Ah! would that I
had known for certain that this was none other than Umslopogaas, for
then had Dingaan gone the way that Chaka went and which Umhlangana
followed, and Umslopogaas ruled the people of the Zulus as their king.
But, alas! my wisdom failed me. I paid no heed to the voice of my heart
which told me that this was Umslopogaas who sent the message to Chaka
threatening