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My men were all ready, and how big must that stone have been, with my father Sompseu digging at one side and myself at the other, that would not have toppled over? Again I say I am glad to know the Transvaal is English ground; perhaps now there may be rest." This and other passages show beyond all doubt from what an awful catastrophe the Transvaal was saved by the Annexation.

The fine of two thousand cattle I will pay for the killing of the women. If it may be, I wish no quarrel with the English, though gladly I would have fought the Dutch had not Sompseu stretched out his arm over their land. But how can I disband the army and make an end of the regiments that have conquered in so many wars? Macumazahn, I tell you that if I did this, in a moon I should be dead.

I told him that I did not know for certain as I had never taken any interest in India, being an African elephant-hunter and trader, but I thought they did occasionally. Just then Robinson passed by and called to me "They'll be here presently, Quatermain, but Sompseu isn't coming himself." "Does your name happen to be Allan Quatermain?" asked the stranger.

No wonder that we find him in despair renewing his prayer that Sompseu will allow him to make "one little raid only, one small swoop," and saying that "it is the custom of our country, when a new king is placed over the nation, to wash their spears, and it has been done in the case of all former kings of Zululand. I am no king, but sit in a heap. I cannot be a king till I have washed my assegais."

But in those days we did not guess what we should live to see, and of Majuba we thought only as a little hill! Enemies have borne false witness against you on this matter, Sompseu, you who never erred except through over kindness. Yet what does that avail? When you have "gone beyond" it will be forgotten, since the sting of ingratitude passes and lies must wither like the winter veldt.

Afterwards I became your counsellor, O King, and I was with you when Sompseu set the crown upon your head and you made promises to Sompseu promises that you have not kept. Now you are weary of me, and it is well; for I am very old, and doubtless my talk is foolish, as it chances to the old.

It must be remembered that it was not merely to oblige his "father Sompseu" that he did this, but to meet the wishes of the English Government, and the act shows how anxious he was to retain the friendship and fall in with the views of that Government. Evidently Cetywayo had no animosity against us in April 1877. In his interview with Mr.

Fynney, Cetywayo speaks out quite frankly as to what his intentions had been; he says, "I know all about the soldiers being on their way up, but I would have asked Sompseu to allow the soldiers to stand on one side for just a little while, only a little, and see what my men could do. It would have been unnecessary for the Queen's people to trouble.

Cetywayo, in describing the scene to us and our companion on a visit to him a short time afterwards, said, 'Sompseu is a great man: no man but he could have come through that day alive. Similar testimony we have had from some of the Zulu assailants, from the native attendants, and the companion above mentioned.

"I cannot grant it," answered Cetywayo, "you are a spy sent by Sompseu, or by the Queen's Induna in Natal. Get you gone." "Indeed," said Hadden, with a shrug of his shoulders; "then I hope that Sompseu, or the Queen's Induna, or both of them, will pay me when I return to my own country. Meanwhile I will obey you because I must, but I should first like to make you a present."