chant never to be forgotten.
From company to company it passes, that wild, characteristic song, so
touching in its simple grandeur, so expressive in its deep, pathetic
volume. The white men who listened had heard the song of choirs ringing
down resounding aisles, they had been thrilled by the roll of oratorios
pealing in melody, beautiful and complex, through the grandest of man's
theatres, but never till now had they heard music of voices so weird,
so soft and yet so savage, so simple and yet so all-expressive of the
fiercest passions known to the human heart. Hark! now it dies; lower and
lower it sinks, it grows faint, despairing: "Why does he not come, our
chief, our lord? Why does he not welcome his singers? Ah! see, they
come, the heralds of our lord! our chief is coming to cheer his
praisers, our chief is coming to lead his warriors." Again it rises
and swells louder and louder, a song of victory and triumph. It rolls
against the mountains, it beats against the ground: "He is coming, he is
here, attended by his chosen. Now we shall go forth to slay; now shall
we taste of the battle." Higher yet and higher, till at length the
chief, Pagadi, swathed in war-garments of splendid furs, preceded by
runners and accompanied by picked warriors, creeps slowly up. He is
old and tottering, and of an unwieldy bulk. Two attendants support
him, whilst a third bears his shield, and a fourth (oh bathos!) a
cane-bottomed chair. One moment the old man stands and surveys his
warriors and listens to the familiar war-cry. As he stands, his face
is lit with the light of battle, the light of remembered days. The
tottering figure straightens itself, the feeble hand becomes strong once
more. With a shout, the old man shakes off his supporters and grasps his
shield, and then, forgetting his weakness and his years, he rushes to
his chieftain's place in the centre of his men. And as he comes the
chant grows yet louder, the time yet faster, till it rises, and rings,
and rolls, no longer a chant, but a war-cry, a paean of power. Pagadi
stops and raises his hand, and the place is filled with a silence that
may be felt. But not for long. The next moment five hundred shields
are tossed aloft, five hundred spears flash in the sunshine, and with a
sudden roar, forth springs the royal salute, "Bayete!"

The chief draws back and gives directions to his _indunas_, his
thinkers, his wise ones, men distinguished from their fellows by the
absence of shiel