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Updated: September 27, 2025
At dawn Umslopogaas looked out over the wide plains beyond, and Galazi showed him a long low hill, two hours' march away. "There, my brother," he said, "lies the head kraal of the Halakazi, where I was born, and in that hill is the great cave." Then they went on, and before the sun was high they came to the crest of a rise, and heard the sound of horns on its farther side.
Know that, long years ago, I swore to my father as he lay dying by the poison of a witch of this people that I would not rest till I had avenged him ay, till I had stamped out the Halakazi, and slain their men, and brought their women to the houses of strangers, and their children to bonds!
Such was the command of the one who is gone, given, as it were, with his last breath." "Nay, Mopo, that is not my will. If no impi can be found by thee to wipe away the Halakazi and bring one whom I desire to delight my eyes, then surely none can be found to eat up this Slaughterer and his people.
May she also know the day of slavery, and the love that she wills not!" and she ceased, sobbing. Now I turned my head and spoke towards the hut, "Chief," I said, "your Ehlose is kind to you to-night, for he has given you a maid fair as the Lily of the Halakazi" here Nada glanced up wildly. "Come, then, and take the girl."
Then she told us all the tale of her wanderings since she had fled away from the side of Umslopogaas at the stronghold of the Halakazi, and it was long, so long that I will not repeat it, for it is a story by itself. This I will say only: that Nada was captured by robbers, and for awhile passed herself off among them as a youth.
To this there was no answer, for there were few who cared to face the beak of Groan-Maker, and so it came about that it was agreed that the People of the Axe should make war upon the Halakazi, and Umslopogaas sent out messengers to summon every fighting-man to his side.
The stones that had blocked it were pulled down so as to allow those of the Halakazi to fly who had been spared at the entreaty of Nada, but there were guards by the entrance to watch that none came back. Umslopogaas challenged them, and they saluted him, but he saw that they were worn out with battle and journeying, and knew little of what they saw or said.
Perhaps, O Mouth of Dingaan, you will see me soon at the king's kraal on the Mahlabatine, and with me the Lily maid and the cattle of the Halakazi; or perhaps you shall not see me, and then you will know that I am dead, and the Warriors of the Axe are no more."
Then the chief of the Halakazi caused the maid who was named the Lily to be led before the messengers of Dingaan, and they found her wonderfully fair, for so they said: she was tall as a reed, and her grace was the grace of a reed that is shaken in the wind.
As I learned afterwards, the cause of their destruction, as in later days it was the cause of the slaying of the Halakazi, was the beauty of Nada and nothing else, for the fame of her loveliness had gone about the land, and the old chief of the Halakazi had commanded that the girl should be sent to his kraal to live there, that her beauty might shine upon his place like the sun, and that, if so she willed, she should choose a husband from the great men of the Halakazi.
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