e
things that are laid to my charge, and worse things which have not been
stated. Oh, I played for great stakes, I, who meant to be the Inkosazana
of the Zulus, and, as it chances, by the weight of a hair I have lost.
I thought that I had counted everything, but the hair's weight which
turned the balance against me was the mad jealousy of this fool, Saduko,
upon which I had not reckoned. I see now that when I left Saduko I
should have left him dead. Thrice I had thought of it. Once I mixed the
poison in his drink, and then he came in, weary with his plottings, and
kissed me ere he drank; and my woman's heart grew soft and I overset the
bowl that was at his lips. Do you not remember, Saduko?

"So, so! For that folly alone I deserve to die, for she who would
reign"--and her beautiful eyes flashed royally--"must have a tiger's
heart, not that of a woman. Well, because I was too kind I must die;
and, after all is said, it is well to die, who go hence awaited by
thousands upon thousands that I have sent before me, and who shall be
greeted presently by your son, Indhlovu-ene-Sihlonti, and his warriors,
greeted as the Inkosazana of Death, with red, lifted spears and with the
royal salute!

"Now, I have spoken. Walk your little road, O King and Prince and
Councillors, till you reach the gulf into which I sink, that yawns for
all of you. O King, when you meet me again at the bottom of that gulf,
what a tale you will have to tell me, you who are but the shadow of a
king, you whose heart henceforth must be eaten out by a worm that is
called _Love-of-the-Lost_. O Prince and Conqueror Cetewayo, what a tale
you will have to tell me when I greet you at the bottom of that gulf,
you who will bring your nation to a wreck and at last die as I must
die--only the servant of others and by the will of others. Nay, ask me
not how. Ask old Zikali, my master, who saw the beginning of your House
and will see its end. Oh, yes, as you say, I am a witch, and I know, I
know! Come, I am spent. You men weary me, as men have always done, being
but fools whom it is so easy to make drunk, and who when drunk are so
unpleasing. Piff! I am tired of you sober and cunning, and I am tired of
you drunken and brutal, you who, after all, are but beasts of the field
to whom Mvelingangi, the Creator, has given heads which can think, but
which always think wrong.

"Now, King, before you unchain your dogs upon me, I ask one moment.
I said that I hated all men, yet,