m stop. At least, you are
Umslopogaas, my brother, or should be by your greatness and the axe. To
the man I cannot altogether swear in this light; but to the axe I can
swear, for once it passed so very near my eyes."

Thus she spoke on, gaining time, and all the while she watched
Umslopogaas till she was sure that it was he and no other. Then she
ceased talking, and, flinging herself on him, she kissed him.

"Now I trust that Zinita sleeps sound," murmured Umslopogaas, for
suddenly he remembered that Nada was no sister of his, as she thought.

Nevertheless, he took her by the hand and said, "Enter, sister. Of all
maidens in the world you are the most welcome here, for know I believed
you dead."

But I, Mopo, ran into the hut before her, and when she entered she found
me sitting by the fire.

"Now, here, my brother," said Nada, pointing at me with her finger,
"here is that old umfagozan, that low fellow, who, unless I dream, but
a very little while ago brought shame upon me--ay, my brother, he struck
me, a maid, with his kerrie, and that only because I said that I would
stab him for his insolence, and he did worse: he swore that he would
drag me to some old chief of his to be a gift to him, and this he
was about to do, had you not come. Will you suffer these things to go
unpunished, my brother?"

Now Umslopogaas smiled grimly, and I answered:--

"What was it that you called me just now, Nada, when you prayed me to
protect you? Father, was it not?" and I turned my face towards the blaze
of the fire, so that the full light fell upon it.

"Yes, I called you father, old man. It is not strange, for a homeless
wanderer must find fathers where she can--and yet! no, it cannot be--so
changed--and that white hand? And yet, oh! who are you? Once there was
a man named Mopo, and he had a little daughter, and she was called
Nada--Oh! my father, my father, I know you now!"

"Ay, Nada, and I knew you from the first; through all your man's
wrappings I knew you after these many years."

So the Lily fell upon my neck and sobbed there, and I remember that I
also wept.

Now when she had sobbed her fill of joy, Umslopogaas brought Nada the
Lily mass to eat and mealie porridge. She ate the curdled milk, but the
porridge she would not eat, saying that she was too weary.

Then she told us all the tale of her wanderings since she had fled away
from the side of Umslopogaas at the stronghold of the Halakazi, and
it was long, so long