This I said because of the rumours I had heard that this Slaughterer was in truth the son of Chaka. Therefore not knowing whether or no he were playing on the word “lion,” which was Chaka’s title, I wished to draw him, especially as I saw in his face a great likeness to Chaka’s brother Dingaan, whom, it was whispered, this same Umslopogaas had slain. As it happened I failed, for after a pause he said,

“Why do you come to visit me, Macumazahn, who have never done so before?”

“I do not come to visit you, Umslopogaas. That was not my intention. You brought me, or rather the flooded rivers and you together brought me, for I was on my way to Natal and could not cross the drifts.”

“Yet I think you have a message for me, White Man, for not long ago a certain wandering witch-doctor who came here told me to expect you and that you had words to say to me.”

“Did he, Umslopogaas? Well, it is true that I have a message, though it is one that I did not mean to deliver.”

“Yet being here, perchance you will deliver it, Macumazahn, for those who have messages and will not speak them, sometimes come to trouble.”

“Yes, being here, I will deliver it, seeing that so it seems to be fated. Tell me, do you chance to know a certain Small One who is great, a certain Old One whose brain is young, a doctor who is called Opener-of-Roads?”

“I have heard of him, as have my forefathers for generations.”

“Indeed, and if it pleases you to tell me, Umslopogaas, what might be the names of those forefathers of yours, who have heard of this doctor for generations? They must have been short-lived men and as such I should like to know of them.”

“That you cannot,” replied Umslopogaas shortly, “since they are hlonipa (i.e. not to be spoken) in this land.”

“Indeed,” I said again. “I thought that rule applied only to the names of kings, but of course I am but an ignorant white man who may well be mistaken on such matters of your Zulu customs.”

“Yes, O Macumazahn, you may be mistaken or—you may not. It matters nothing. But what of this message of yours?”

“It came at the end of a long story, O Bulalio. But since you seek to know, these were the words of it, so nearly as I can remember them.”

Then sentence by sentence I repeated to him all that Zikali had said to me when he called me back after bidding me farewell, which doubtless he did because he wished to cut his message more deeply into the tablets of my mind.

Umslopogaas listened to every syllable with a curious intentness, and then asked me to repeat it all again, which I did.

“Lousta! Monazi!” he said slowly. “Well, you heard those names to-day, did you not, White Man? And you heard certain things from the lips of this Monazi who was angry, that give colour to that talk of the Opener-of-Roads. It seems to me,” he added, glancing about him and speaking in a low voice, “that what I suspected is true and that without doubt I am betrayed.”

“I do not understand,” I replied indifferently. “All this talk is dark to me, as is the message of the Opener-of-Roads, or rather its meaning. By whom and about what are you betrayed?”

“Let that snake sleep. Do not kick it with your foot. Suffice it you to know that my head hangs upon this matter; that I am a rat in a forked stick, and if the stick is pressed on by a heavy hand, then where is the rat?”

“Where all rats go, I suppose, that is, unless they are wise rats that bite the hand which holds the stick before it is pressed down.”

“What is the rest of this story of yours, Macumazahn, which was told before the Opener-of-Roads gave you that message? Does it please you to repeat it to me that I may judge of it with my ears?”

“Certainly,” I answered, “on one condition, that what the ears hear, the heart shall keep to itself alone.”

Umslopogaas stooped and laid his hand upon the broad blade of the weapon beside him, saying,

“By the Axe I swear it. If I break the oath be the Axe my doom.”