ear her laugh, even as to hear
her talk.

"_Yau_!" she cried. "I do not think I will enter the _isigodhlo_ of
Umzilikazi."

"But what if no choice is allowed you?"

"But there will be. There is that by which Umzilikazi dare not wed me."

Now I cried out in wonder, yet was my mind relieved.

"There is," she went on. "And--I am greater than your King, son of
Ntelani."

"Then must you be of the root of Senzangakona himself, for there is but
one who is greater than our King, and that is Dingane, who now sits in
the seat of Tshaka."

[Senzangakona was father of Tshaka, the founder of the Zulu military
dynasty.]

This I said jestingly, and then, seeing that the shadows were getting
long, I rose and, going to the entrance of the place, I dragged in the
carcass of a buck I had slain on my way; for, besides what game I could
bring her, Lalusini had no food but dry corn. Of water she had
abundance, for a little clear spring trickled down the rock at the
further end of the place, losing itself in a dark cleft; but only at
night could she make a fire, for then alone there was no risk of the
smoke betraying her, and the light--of a small fire, at any rate--was
quite hidden from without.

"_Au_! it must be lonely here at night," I said, looking upward at the
great gloomy rock-roof. "Do you not hear the ghosts up above, wailing
among the dry bones wherein they dwelt when alive?"

"I fear not such things, Untuswa. What I fear more is that yonder stone
may not be heavy enough to keep out a lion I have heard upon the
mountain the last two nights. He was snapping and growling among the
bones, and I feared he might try to force his way in here."

I examined the hole, which was only large enough to admit the body of a
man creeping on his hands and knees. This hole Lalusini used to stop at
night by rolling a stone against its mouth, yet the stone did not fill
up the entire hole, but only enough to render it too small for the
passage of any large body.

"It is safe," I said, testing the weight. "Nothing large enough to be
harmful could force an entrance, yet I must try and slay that lion. And
now, Lalusini, I must return, for it will be dark by the time I arrive,
and our people like not those who wander overmuch in the night-time."

We took an affectionate leave of each other, yet Lalusini would not at
that time tell me anything of her own tale, and I made my way back to
the top of the mountain. And all the way hom