brave man, mad with baffled rage, and seeing that the
wall would soon be built and his plans defeated, shook the great
spear he held, and rushed up the dripping steps.

'Ah, ah!' shouted the Zulu, as he recognized the priest's flowing
white beard, 'it is thou, old "witch-finder"! Come on! I await
thee, white "medicine man"; come on! come on! I have sworn to
slay thee, and I ever keep my faith.'

On he came, taking him at his word, and drave the big spear with
such force at Umslopogaas that it sunk right through the tough
shield and pierced him in the neck. The Zulu cast down the transfixed
shield, and that moment was Agon's last, for before he could
free his spear and strike again, with a shout of '_There's for
thee, Rain-maker!_' Umslopogaas gripped Inkosi-kaas with both
hands and whirled on high and drave her right on to his venerable
head, so that Agon rolled down dead among the corpses of his
fellow-murderers, and there was an end to him and his plots altogether.
And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot of the stair,
and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was yet
unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called
an answer to their shouts. Then the would-be murderers who yet
remained on the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests,
turned to fly, but, having nowhere to go, were butchered as they
fled. Only one man stayed, and he was the great lord Nasta,
Nyleptha's suitor, and the father of the plot. For a moment
the black-bearded Nasta stood with bowed face leaning on his
long sword as though in despair, and then, with a dreadful shout,
he too rushed up at the Zulu, and, swinging the glittering sword
around his head, dealt him such a mighty blow beneath his guard,
that the keen steel of the heavy blade bit right through the
chain armour and deep into Umslopogaas' side, for a moment
paralysing him and causing him to drop his axe.

Raising the sword again, Nasta sprang forward to make an end
of him, but little he knew his foe. With a shake and a yell
of fury, the Zulu gathered himself together and sprang straight
at Nasta's throat, as I have sometimes seen a wounded lion spring.
He struck him full as his foot was on the topmost stair, and
his long arms closing round him like iron bands, down they rolled
together struggling furiously. Nasta was a strong man and a
desperate, but he could not match the strongest man in Zululand,
sore wounded though he was,