vading might of the two
brothers, the Zulu Kings?

Now I saw in the darkness a wide door open for my escape from my
perilous position.

"We will return now, my children, having found out all we desire to
know," I said.

"_Yeh-bo, Nkulu 'nkulu_!" assented the warriors, bending down and
uttering words of _bonga_. Then they opened for me to pass, but I
signed them to precede me; and so we all climbed up the rocks till we
soon found ourselves on the slope of one of those great rifts which ran
down into the half-circular hollow or basin which I had marked out for
the deathtrap of Mhlangana's _impi_.

"_Whau_!" muttered Silwane, who walked just in front of me. "The moon
is dark for the mourning of a nation, for the death of a king."

"I think that is even so, Silwane," I said grimly, my meaning not being
his.

The steep slope along which we were proceeding was thickly sprinkled
with growths of bush, and here and there great formations of boulders
and stones, which rendered the way difficult and toilsome. And now a
bit of the moon began to reappear. At all risks I must slip away, even
if it aroused suspicion.

I had already drawn back somewhat, falling farther and farther into the
rear. Already I judged the distance between myself and the warriors
great enough, and the spot favourable, for it was rugged and
rock-strewn, and overgrown with bush. Already I had turned the darker
side of my shield towards them, and in a moment more would have dropped
into concealment, and glided away with the silence and rapidity of a
serpent, when, _Nkose_, the strangest of strange things happened.

Between myself and the warriors in front there was a shape. It seemed
to appear out of empty air, for assuredly I had seen it spring out of
nowhere. It was the shape of a man, tall and broad. Unlike the
warriors in front, he was not adorned as for war, but like myself,
though wearing only the _mutya_ as usual, he was fully armed. His back
was towards me, and, as I stared wildly at him in the now fast
lightening darkness, a movement he made brought full into my view the
large war-shield which he carried. _Hau_! The shield was pure white,
like my own--a royal shield. This, then, must be the real Mhlangana.

The time had come, _Nkose_--had fully come--to take leave of that party,
for assuredly had Mhlangana looked back he would have taken me for his
ghost, stalking behind him, and who would wish to frighten any so great
as one of