e danger from afar.

"Ah, Deathgrip," said Galazi aloud to the wild brute at his side,
"changed is the Wolf King my brother, all changed because of a woman's
kiss. Now he hunts no more, no more shall Groan-Maker be aloft; it is
a woman's kiss he craves, not the touch of your rough tongue, it is a
woman's hand he holds, not the smooth haft of horn, he, who of all men,
was the fiercest and the first; for this last shame has overtaken
him. Surely Chaka was a great king though an evil, and he showed his
greatness when he forbade marriage to the warriors, marriage that makes
the heart soft and turns blood to water."

Now Galazi ceased, and gazed idly towards the kraal of the People of the
Axe, and as he looked his eyes caught a gleam of light that seemed
to travel in and out of the edge of the shadow of Ghost Mountain as
a woman's needle travels through a skin, now seen and now lost in the
skin.

He started and watched. Ah! there the light came out from the shadow.
Now, by Chaka's head, it was the light of spears!

One moment more Galazi watched. It was a little impi, perhaps they
numbered two hundred men, running silently, but not to battle, for they
wore no plumes. Yet they went out to kill, for they ran in companies,
and each man carried assegais and a shield.

Now Galazi had heard tell of such impis that hunt by night, and he knew
well that these were the king's dogs, and their game was men, a big
kraal of sleeping men, otherwise there had been fewer dogs. Is a whole
pack sent out to catch an antelope on its form? Galazi wondered whom
they sought. Ah! now they turned to the ford, and he knew. It was his
brother Umslopogaas and Nada the Lily and the People of the Axe. These
were the king's dogs, and Zinita had let them slip. For this reason she
had called a feast of women, and taken the children with her; for this
reason so many had been summoned from the kraal by one means or another:
it was that they might escape the slaughter.

Galazi bounded to his feet. For one moment he thought. Might not these
hunters be hunted? Could he not destroy them by the jaws of the wolves
as once before they had destroyed a certain impi of the king's? Ay, if
he had seen them but one hour before, then scarcely a man of them should
have lived to reach the stream, for he would have waylaid them with
his wolves. But now it might not be; the soldiers neared the ford, and
Galazi knew well that his grey people would not hunt on the further