sunset was dusking. The Zulu stood--contemplating
him with a faint, ironical grin.

"There are `mouths' on this mountain top," he began, "waiting to swallow
up men--and women," he added, with a glance at Edala who together with
her companion had now come up. "_Whau_! it is easy to fall into such.
There are those that only half swallow, and return their prey, such as
that,"--pointing with his knobstick to the mouth of a crevice a few
yards on the other side of the boulder. "Yet it may be that the prey
though it returns to life does not do so unbitten. There are other
`mouths' who do not return their prey at all, and if it is sought for it
is too late, for it is already dead."

To two of the listeners this bit of dark talking was intelligible
because they were familiar with the tricks and turns of the Zulu
language. The speaker merely meant to convey that some of the crevices
were more dangerous than others. But to the third there was nothing
`dark' about it. And then, either from the fact--which no one but
herself would have noticed--that her father's voice had lost some of its
imperturbability, or by some mysterious conjunction of weird telepathy--
Edala began to think there must be some deeper, darker meaning
underlying the words. All sorts of ghastly conjectures shot through her
mind, but all vague, shadowy, nebulous. Through them she heard the
voice of Elvesdon questioning the stranger.

"Who are you?"

"Manamandhla, son of Gwegula."

"Of the Zulu?"

"_Yeh-bo 'Nkose_."

"And your chief--who is he?"

"The Government."

"But your own chief?"

"The King."

"Which king?" said Elvesdon, becoming `short.'

"_Au_! are there then two kings? I had not heard that."

This answer given so quietly and innocently would have caused the other
two to smile, only they were in no smiling mood.

"But who is your chief in Zululand, your Zulu chief?" went on Elvesdon,
growing impatient. But the deprecatory smile on the other's face was
beautiful to behold. He replied.

"Now _Nkose_, I would ask--Are there any chiefs in Zululand other than
the Government? Not to-day--Government is our chief."

"Not Mehlo-ka-zulu?"

"He is my relative."

Elvesdon burst out laughing.

"Confound the fellow, he reminds one of the Irish witness in `Handy
Andy'," he said. Then to the Zulu: "Where is your kraal?"

"_La-pa_. Over there." And the speaker pointed with his stick in a
direction which conveyed the idea that h