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Presently the inceku, or household servant, to whom I gave my message, returned, saying that I was to be admitted at once, and on entering the enclosure I found the King sitting at the head of the kraal quite alone, except for a man who was holding a large shield over him in order to keep off the sun.
"Bayéte!" he exclaimed, lifting his hat courteously. "I behold you, Nyonyoba," replied the king. "Welcome be seated." With a murmur of acknowledgment, Laurence subsided upon the grass mat which had been placed for him by the inceku, who had followed him in.
Then he would offer lobola for Lindela, and "I accompany you farther, Nyonyoba, at the word of the Great Great One, by whose light we live." The voice of the inceku who had ushered him forth broke in upon his meditations.
Tyisandhlu made no reply, but reaching out his hand he took up a whistle and blew a double note upon it. Immediately there entered an inceku. "Let no man approach until this note shall again sound," said the king. "Preserve clear a wide space around, lest the ear that opens too wide be removed from its owner's head. Go." The man saluted humbly and withdrew.
His parting remark seemed to point that way. "Enter," said the inceku, halting before one of the huts. "Enter, and good go with thee. I return to the king. Fare thee well!" Laurence bent down and pushed back the wicker slab that formed the door of the hut, and, having crawled through the low, beehive-like entrance, stood upright within, and instinctively kicked the fire into a blaze.
An inceku, or royal household servant, received him at the gate, and the guards having saluted and withdrawn, he was ushered by the attendant into the king's presence. The royal house, a large, dome-shaped, circular hut, differed in no respect from the others, save that it was of somewhat greater size.
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