ck robe,
the long, flowing beard, the countenance stamped with a great horror and
pain, were known to all. It was the white _isanusi_.

"Hold! my children!" he cried. "Hold! I beg of you!"

The slayers hesitated, and growled to each other. With arms
outstretched, there the white man stood on the cliff brow between the
hideous, hungry reptiles and their weeping, shivering victims. To fling
these in was impossible without flinging him in too.

"It is the King's will, father," growled the chief of the slayers.
"Know you not that did we hesitate we should be even as these? Stand
aside."

"Not yet, not yet," he pleaded; and there was weeping in his voice.
"Not yet. Wait--only until I hasten to the King! He will hear me, for
he has given me the lives of such as these!"

"It may not be, father," was the answer, made now with more alarm.
"_Whau_! it is on us the _izingwenya_ will feed, if not on these. Stand
now aside."

"Ah! have pity! Untuswa will take my side," he cried in a glad voice,
catching sight of my face. "Stay their hands, Untuswa, if only for a
while, till I bring back the King's pardon."

"It may not be, father," I, too, replied. "The King's sentence has been
given. It is even as the men say. Their lives are as the lives of
these if they hesitate. Would you doom to death many men where two will
suffice? Let them do their work."

Now, I know not, _Nkose_, how this thing would have ended; for the white
_isanusi_ still continued to stand and plead, and none dare remove him
by force, remembering in what high honour he was held by the Great Great
ONE. But just then loud shouting made itself heard upon the outskirts
of the crowd, which bent low suddenly, like a forest struck by a gale.
And there advancing, with his head thrown back and a light in his eyes
such as none of us cared to behold, came the Great Great One himself.

He stalked straight up to where stood the white _isanusi_, to where lay
the doomed ones and the executioners, who, having hesitated to perform
their work, counted themselves already dead. He was attended by the old
_induna_ Mcumbete, to whom he now turned.

"See," he said, in a voice which made many tremble, "I am no King. I am
only the lowest of the Amaholi. For the word of a King is obeyed; yet
my word, though long since uttered, is not obeyed. _Hau_! What sort of
a King ami?"

And the terrible frown of anger upon his face took in the white man,
even as it did o