akazi, she and her mother Macropha, and how the fame of her beauty
had spread about the land. Then she told him how the Halakazi had
claimed her, and of how, in the end, they had taken her by force of
arms, killing the people of that kraal, and among them her own mother.
Thereafter, she had dwelt among the Halakazi, who named her anew,
calling her the Lily, and they had treated her kindly, giving her
reverence because of her sweetness and beauty, and not forcing her into
marriage.

"And why would you not wed, Nada, my sister?" asked Umslopogaas, "you
who are far past the age of marriage?"

"I cannot tell you," she answered, hanging her head; "but I have no
heart that way. I only seek to be left alone."

Now Umslopogaas thought awhile and spoke. "Do you not know then, Nada,
why it is that I have made this war, and why the people of the Halakazi
are dead and scattered and their cattle the prize of my arm? I will tell
you: I am come here to win you, whom I knew only by report as the Lily
maid, the fairest of women, to be a wife to Dingaan. The reason that I
began this war was to win you and make my peace with Dingaan, and now I
have carried it through to the end."

Now when she heard these words, Nada the Lily trembled and wept,
and, sinking to the earth, she clasped the knees of Umslopogaas in
supplication: "Oh, do not this cruel thing by me, your sister," she
prayed; "take rather that great axe and make an end of me, and of the
beauty which has wrought so much woe, and most of all to me who wear it!
Would that I had not moved my head behind the shield, but had suffered
the axe to fall upon it. To this end I was dressed as a man, that I
might meet the fate of a man. Ah! a curse be on my woman's weakness that
snatched me from death to give me up to shame!"

Thus she prayed to Umslopogaas in her low sweet voice, and his heart was
shaken in him, though, indeed, he did not now purpose to give Nada to
Dingaan, as Baleka was given to Chaka, perhaps in the end to meet the
fate of Baleka.

"There are many, Nada," he said, "who would think it no misfortune that
they should be given as a wife to the first of chiefs."

"Then I am not of their number," she answered; "nay, I will die first,
by my own hand if need be."

Now Umslopogaas wondered how it came about that Nada looked upon
marriage thus, but he did not speak of the matter; he said only, "Tell
me then, Nada, how I can deliver myself of this charge. I must go to
Ding