ving of our nation.

And I, after that I carried the white shield and the King's broad spear
into many a fray, and the might of the Amandebeli stood as it had ever
done, nor was the arm of Dingane stretched out again to strike us
until--Well, there came a time.

But it will soon grow dark, _Nkose_, nor is there time to begin another
story. _Whau_! and a long one indeed has this been, for I think the sun
had but just risen when I began, and now it is about to sink below the
rim of the world again. In the lives of men, as in the lives of
nations, strange things befall, and in mine, who am now old, strange
things have befallen. I have lived under the shadow of five Kings--all
mighty and great--but of them all, saving perhaps Tshaka, none was so
great as Umzilikazi, the Father and Founder of a great and mighty
nation.

EPILOGUE.

Now as old Untuswa ended, the other two Zulus--who had been intently,
eagerly, listening throughout--never interrupting, though uttering an
emphatic murmur of assent or astonishment now and again, fell to
discussing this tale they had heard--the Tale of the White Shield. They
compared it with other traditions of magic feats and magic arms, wholly
heroic and three parts mythical. But the old follower of Umzilikazi
stood aloof with a good-humoured, yet pitying, kind of smile. He had
other stories, he more than hinted; for this stirring epic which he had
just narrated covered a time which was to his life as less than the
blade of an assegai is to its whole length.

Then indeed, I, the stranger and the civilised, felt a growing
compunction that time--and other things--forbade further dalliance amid
the wild mountain haunts of these genuinely interesting barbarians, for
from where we sat to Kambtila, whither the wagon had proceeded, was a
far cry at that time of night; nor was the way better known to me than
any other road I had never travelled before, and it was already growing
dusk. Wherefore my steed, grazing hard by, was caught and saddled, and
the splendid old veteran of a hundred fights, stood holding my stirrup
in his courteous Zulu manner, and thus with hearty farewells we parted.

The darkness drew down, curtaining the grey cliffs above with shadowy
gloom, and now lights twinkled forth from the little eyrie-like kraal,
and as I slanted down the steep side of the mountain I could still see
the dark forms of the three warriors, could hear the quivering rattle of
assegai-hafts an