s;
or, at the mildest, the knob-sticks of the slayers. I remembered, too,
the words which, in times past, had been spoken by Nangeza, my chief
wife: "A man who is brave and cautious may climb to any height,"--and,
indeed, she suffered me not to forget them, for she was as proud and
ambitious as ever, and was continually inciting me to supplant Kalipe.
Then once I held the army in the hollow of my hand, what easier than--

But at this point I would stop my ears and cry upon her to hold her
peace, lest she brought me--brought us all--to a far more fearful and
lingering death than that which I extended my breast to meet when I
claimed and won the King's assegai--as I have already told you, _Nkose_.
But Nangeza had a plotting brain and would ever be first--indeed, had
the King taken her to wife, she would never have rested until she had
made herself King over him or--until she had been led forth to the place
of slaughter. Moreover, I would do nothing against Kalipe, whose word
and ways were as straight as his path when the King's enemies lay before
him, and although he was much older than I he would never show any
jealousy because I had been promoted nearly to an equality with himself.

"It is the weakness of our nation, Untuswa," he would say, "that we rend
and devour each other like a pack of jackals; and every man plots, lest
another rise to be a little greater than himself. Now, the man I would
sooner see second to me, or even equal with me, is not the oldest, nor
yet the richest man, but the bravest; and that man is, I believe,
yourself, son of Ntelani, young in years as you are."

Thus spake Kalipe, and, indeed, he meant his words; and while this was
so, and I had old Masuka on my side, I feared the grudges and jealousy
of no man.

Now, it was in the mind of the King to abandon Ekupumuleni, and to move
farther northward, partly for the reasons I have given, partly that the
arm of Tshaka stretched far, and he was never quite certain that we were
beyond the reach of it. So he ordered me to take a force of warriors,
and make an expedition into the country with the ever-flowing streams,
and to verify such reports of it as had come in.

My command was but a small one, comprising perhaps sixty or seventy
men--the merest handful, remembering that those through whom our path
lay were in countless thousands, and that small cause indeed had they to
love us. Yet such was the terror inspired by the very name of the
Aman