aving the rest of the meal unswallowed, I went to the doorway of the
yard and there found my old friend, Kambula.

"Greeting, Inkoos," he said to me; "I am come to take you back to Natal
with a guard. But I warn you to ask me no questions, for if you do I
must not answer them. Dingaan is ill, and you cannot see him, nor can
you see the white praying-man, or anyone; you must come with me at
once."

"I do not want to see Dingaan," I replied, looking him in the eyes.

"I understand," answered Kambula; "Dingaan's thoughts are his thoughts
and your thoughts are your thoughts, and perhaps that is why he does not
want to see _you_. Still, remember, Inkoos, that Dingaan has saved your
life, snatching you unburned out of a very great fire, perhaps because
you are of a different sort of wood, which he thinks it a pity to burn.
Now, if you are ready, let us go."

"I am ready," I answered.

At the gate I met Naya, who said:

"You never thought to say good-bye to me, White Man, although I have
tended you well. Ah! what else could I expect? Still, I hope that if I
should have to fly from this land for _my_ life, as may chance, you will
do for me what I have done for you."

"That I will," I answered, shaking her by the hand; and, as it happened,
in after years I did.

Kambula led me, not through the kraal Umgungundhlovu, but round it.
Our road lay immediately past the death mount, Hloma Amabutu, where the
vultures were still gathered in great numbers. Indeed, it was actually
my lot to walk over the new-picked bones of some of my companions who
had been despatched at the foot of the hill. One of these skeletons I
recognised by his clothes to be that of Samuel Esterhuizen, a very
good fellow, at whose side I had slept during all our march. His empty
eye-sockets seemed to stare at me reproachfully, as though they asked
me why I remained alive when he and all his brethren were dead. I echoed
the question in my own mind. Why of that great company did I alone
remain alive?

An answer seemed to rise within me: That I might be one of the
instruments of vengeance upon that devilish murderer, Dingaan. Looking
upon those poor shattered and desecrated frames that had been men, I
swore in my heart that if I lived I would not fail in that mission. Nor
did I fail, although the history of that great repayment cannot be told
in these pages.

Turning my eyes from this dreadful sight, I saw that on the opposite
slope, where we had camped du