rong; for though Macropha indeed was killed, it was
another maid who lay in blood beside her; for the people whither I had
sent Macropha and Nada were tributary to the Halakazi tribe, and that
chief of the Halakazi who sat in the place of Galazi the Wolf had
quarrelled with them, and fallen on them by night and eaten them up.

As I learned afterwards, the cause of their destruction, as in later
days it was the cause of the slaying of the Halakazi, was the beauty of
Nada and nothing else, for the fame of her loveliness had gone about
the land, and the old chief of the Halakazi had commanded that the girl
should be sent to his kraal to live there, that her beauty might shine
upon his place like the sun, and that, if so she willed, she should
choose a husband from the great men of the Halakazi. But the headmen
of the kraal refused, for none who had looked on her would suffer their
eyes to lose sight of Nada the Lily, though there was this fate about
the maid that none strove to wed her against her will. Many, indeed,
asked her in marriage, both there and among the Halakazi people, but
ever she shook her head and said, "Nay, I would wed no man," and it was
enough.

For it was the saying among men, that it was better that she should
remain unmarried, and all should look on her, than that she should pass
from their sight into the house of a husband; since they held that her
beauty was given to be a joy to all, like the beauty of the dawn and
of the evening. Yet this beauty of Nada's was a dreadful thing, and the
mother of much death, as shall be told; and because of her beauty and
the great love she bore, she, the Lily herself, must wither, and the
cup of my sorrows must be filled to overflowing, and the heart of
Umslopogaas the Slaughterer, son of Chaka the king, must become desolate
as the black plain when fire has swept it. So it was ordained, my
father, and so it befell, seeing that thus all men, white and black,
seek that which is beautiful, and when at last they find it, then it
passes swiftly away, or, perchance, it is their death. For great joy and
great beauty are winged, nor will they sojourn long upon the earth. They
come down like eagles out of the sky, and into the sky they return again
swiftly.

Thus then it came about, my father, that I, Mopo, believing my daughter
Nada to be dead, little guessed that it was she who was named the Lily
in the kraals of the Halakazi, and whom Dingaan the king desired for a
wif