. Amongst the former was an under officer of Nyleptha's own
guard, who suddenly turned and made a run for the doorway through
which Sorais' people were already passing. Umslopogaas, who
was present and had taken the whole scene in, seeing with admirable
presence of mind that if this soldier got away others would follow
his example, seized the man, who drew his sword and struck at
him. Thereon the Zulu sprang back with a wild shout, and, avoiding
the sword cuts, began to peck at his foe with his terrible axe,
till in a few seconds the man's fate overtook him and he fell
with a clash heavily and quite dead upon the marble floor.

This was the first blood spilt in the war.

'Shut the gates,' I shouted, thinking that we might perhaps catch
Sorais so, and not being troubled with the idea of committing
sacrilege. But the order came too late, her guards were already
passing through them, and in another minute the streets echoed
with the furious galloping of horses and the rolling of her chariots.

So, drawing half the people after her, Sorais was soon passing
like a whirlwind through the Frowning City on her road to her
headquarters at M'Arstuna, a fortress situated a hundred and
thirty miles to the north of Milosis.

And after that the city was alive with the endless tramp of regiments
and preparations for the gathering war, and old Umslopogaas once
more began to sit in the sunshine and go through a show of sharpening
Inkosi-kaas's razor edge.

CHAPTER XIX
A STRANGE WEDDING

One person, however, did not succeed in getting out in time before
the gates were shut, and that was the High Priest Agon, who,
as we had every reason to believe, was Sorais' great ally, and
the heart and soul of her party. This cunning and ferocious
old man had not forgiven us for those hippopotami, or rather
that was what he said. What he meant was that he would never
brook the introduction of our wider ways of thought and foreign
learning and influence while there was a possibility of stamping
us out. Also he knew that we possessed a different system of
religion, and no doubt was in daily terror of our attempting
to introduce it into Zu-Vendis. One day he asked me if we had
any religion in our country, and I told him that so far as I
could remember we had ninety-five different ones. You might
have knocked him down with a feather, and really it is difficult
not to pity a high priest of a well-established cult who is haunted