e
finest civilised troops, halting a horse's length in rear of their
commander. Then, at a signal from the chief, every man tossed his right
hand aloft in salute and thundered out the word _'Nkosi_! This salute
Dick and Grosvenor acknowledged by placing their hands to their hat-
brims, in military fashion, to the evident satisfaction of 'Mpandula and
his followers; and then, as the two whites touched their horse's flanks
with the spur and moved forward at a canter, the escort formed up,
completely encircling them; one man at the same moment detaching himself
and galloping away in the direction of the wagon, in response to an
order from his commander.

Some twenty minutes later the party reached the outskirts of the ruined
city, and found themselves confronted by enormous masses of masonry,
consisting of walls, some of which still remained erect, although for
the most part they had sunk into shapeless, overgrown masses of ruin,
arches, columns, erect and prostrate, fragmentary pediments, shattered
entablatures, dislodged capitals, crumbling pedestals, and mutilated
statues of men and animals, all of colossal proportions; the buildings
and portions of buildings all being of an immensely massive yet ornate
and imposing style of architecture quite unknown to the travellers.
Even the cursory glimpses which were all that Dick and Grosvenor were
for the moment able to obtain, convinced them both that they were face
to face with the remains of a city that must, thousands of years ago,
have been of enormous extent and of almost unimaginable opulence and
splendour.

But they had little time, just then, in which to indulge their
curiosity, for they almost immediately struck into a sort of bridle path
that presently turned away from the ruins and led toward an extensive
village, which now swept into view as they rounded the spur of a hill.
The village consisted of some five hundred huts surrounding a central
stockade, which enclosed a small group of buildings of considerably more
pretentious character than the ordinary huts, and which Dick and
Grosvenor at once conjectured must be the royal palace and its
dependencies. This conjecture was confirmed upon their arrival at the
village, for at the gateway of the stockade the cavalcade halted, and
'Mpandula, dismounting, requested his charges to do the same, intimating
that he was about to conduct them forthwith into the presence of the
king.

Of course there was nothing to be do