Ivuzamanzi, Ivondwe and Atyisayo--were
brought in as principals--the others as accessories--some before, some
after the fact.

Never shall I forget the scene in court, as they were asked whether they
had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon
them. It was just sundown, and an angry storm had been raging outside
for fully an hour. Growling, cracking peals of thunder had interrupted
the judge's summing up, and now, during a lull, the glare of a wet
sunset came in through the windows, and a few heavy drops of rain still
fell like stones on the corrugated iron roof during the tense silence.
They stood in the dock those twelve dark figures, some leaning eagerly
forward over the rail, their eyeballs protruding in the climax of the
moment's excitement, others impassive and statuesque. Amid the public
was a subdued, hush. The native public especially seemed turned to
stone.

In answer to the appeal the bulk of the prisoners shook their heads.
They had nothing to say, they declared, and then subsided into stolid
silence. But when it came to the turn of Ivondwe, he harangued the
Court at some length. The white man, he said, professed to be the
protector and tolerator of all religions. Now this, for which they
stood there, was part of the black man's religion--or at any rate a
section of it. Why then, was not that tolerated too? Ivuzamanzi, when
it came to his turn, answered with heat, that he was the son of a
chief--that he was a Zulu of the tribe of Umtetwa; that he cared nothing
for a set of preaching whites and their stupid laws; that he only wished
he had crossed the river long ago, and gone to _konza_ to Cetywayo.
There he would have been in a warrior land where the head-ring of his
father and chief could not have been insulted with impunity by a
swaggering _igcwane_ like the one who sat yonder--pointing to Falkner--
who, however, perhaps fortunately, didn't understand what was being said
until the interpreter had rendered it, and then it was too late to kick
up a row. Then he might have joined one day in driving the whites into
the sea, where sooner or later they would all be driven. He was the son
of a chief and could die like one. He was not going to lie down and
howl for mercy like a miserable cheat of an _isanusi_.

This with a savage glare at Ukozi.

The latter said not much. He had confessed. He had done what he could
to put right what had been done. His life was in the han