and slay this Dingaan,
ere he slay me."

"Yet it is well to leave a frightened lion in his thicket, my son, for a
lion at bay is hard to handle. Doubt not that every man, young and old,
in Umgugundhlovu now stands armed about the gates, lest such a thought
should take you, my son; and though just now he was afraid, yet Dingaan
will strike for his life. When you might have killed you did not kill;
now the hour has gone."

"Wise words!" said Galazi. "I would that the Watcher had fallen where
his shadow fell."

"What is your counsel now, father?" asked Umslopogaas.

"This, then: that you two should abide no more beneath the shadow of the
Ghost Mountain, but should gather your people and your cattle, and pass
to the north on the track of Mosilikatze the Lion, who broke away
from Chaka. There you may rule apart or together, and never dream of
Dingaan."

"I will not do that, father," he answered. "I will dwell beneath the
shadow of the Ghost Mountain while I may."

"And so will I," said Galazi, "or rather among its rocks. What! shall my
wolves lack a master when they would go a-hunting? Shall Greysnout and
Blackfang, Blood and Deathgrip, and their company black and grey, howl
for me in vain?"

"So be it, children. Ye are young and will not listen to the counsel of
the old. Let it befall as it chances."

I spoke thus, for I did not know then why Umslopogaas would not leave
his kraals. It was for this reason: because he had bidden Nada to meet
him there.

Afterwards, when he found her he would have gone, but then the sky was
clear, the danger-clouds had melted for awhile.

Oh! that Umslopogaas my fosterling had listened to me! Now he would have
reigned as a king, not wandered an outcast in strange lands I know not
where; and Nada should have lived, not died, nor would the People of the
Axe have ceased to be a people.

This of Dingaan. When he heard my message he grew afraid once more, for
he knew me to be no liar.

Therefore he held his hand for awhile, sending no impi to smite
Umslopogaas, lest it might come about that I should bring him his death
as I had promised. And before the fear had worn away, it happened that
Dingaan's hands were full with the war against the Amaboona, because of
his slaughter of the white people, and he had no soldiers to spare with
whom to wreak vengeance on a petty chief living far away.

Yet his rage was great because of what had chanced, and, after his
custom, he murdered many i