ile. It is only due to his rank."

The warriors laughed, and went on flinging in the wretched Bakoni.

"Ha, Tauane," I said, speaking in his own tongue, "it is not good to
shake weapons in the face of the King's messenger. And know this. Not
to thee alone is the secret of the Queen of the mysteries of the Bakoni
known. Through the darkness of the earth, to an outward chamber in the
cliff, like unto the place of an eagle's nest, there lies hidden she in
whose veins runs the pure blood of the Amazulu, even the blood which is
fit to mingle with that of kings. I know the place beside thyself--I
alone."

He stared at me with a strange, wild expression.

"Thou and the King--yes," he muttered.

"Not the King--I only," I jeered. "Not the King; thy words did not
travel so far."

"Yet he would have given me my life!" he said, in a bewildered way,
looking giddily around. Then, as it seemed to burst upon him how he had
been tricked, he began to scream aloud the story; but none there
understood a word, and before he could say many words I had seized him
by the neck. At a sign from me others seized him too, and, swinging him
up, bound as he was, flung him right over the two walls, where he fell
upon the living struggling mass of all that remained of his followers.
Now fire was put in, and the great piles of dry stuff crackled and
flared, and the flames and smoke drove across the bodies of those who
had taken the places of myself and Mgwali, and were now suffering the
death to which they had destined us. And, as the flames roared upward
to the heavens, in a great circle our warriors formed around as near as
the heat would allow them to draw, and the thunderous stamp of the
war-dance drowned the wild shrieks of the last of the victims due to the
insult and outrage offered to the King's messengers. And that was the
end of Tauane, the chief of the Bakoni, of the People of the Blue
Cattle.

That night, when the fires were lighted, the King ordered a great dance
of the _Tyay'igama_, or "calling of names," when those named by their
captains for deeds of valour should have an opportunity of recounting
their claims to such distinction before the King and the whole nation.
And, among others, I "named" my brother, Mgwali, who, in his manner of
setting forth his deeds, when dancing alone amid the circle of warriors,
reminded me not a little of my own performance when I was "named" by
Gungana on a like occasion. However, the Ki