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Updated: June 9, 2025
So Makedama, my father, bade the people do the bidding of the king, for neither he nor the indunas saw his purpose, but I, who knew his wicked heart, I saw it. Then the people filed past to the right and to the left by hundreds and by thousands, and presently the grass of the slopes could be seen no more, because of their number.
But I knelt over him and called in his ear the names of all those of my blood who had died at his hands the names of Makedama, my father, of my mother, of Anadi my wife, of Moosa my son, and all my other wives and children, and of Baleka my sister.
My kraals are desolate, the cattle wander untended on the hills, birds pick at the unguarded crops." "It is well, Makedama, thou faithful servant! Yet thou wouldst mourn with me an hour is it not so? Now, hearken! Bid thy people pass to the right and to the left of me, and stand in all their numbers upon the slopes of the grass that run down to the lips of the rift."
"The mouth is a little member, even of the body of a great king, O Chief Bulalio, ruler of the People of the Axe, wizard of the wolves that are upon the Ghost Mountain, who aforetime was named Umslopogaas, son of Mopo, son of Makedama." Now when Umslopogaas heard these words he started like a child at a rustling in the dark and stared hard at me. "You are well instructed," he said.
He shall fight to the death with one of these pigs from thy sty," and he pointed with his spear to the men of my father's kraal, "and the one who survives shall be run down as they tried to run you down. I will send back the other pig to the sty with a message. Choose, children of Makedama, which of you will live."
"Now," I said, "it has fared ill with those soldiers of the Black One who is gone, for I think that these are the shields they bore, and that their eyes once looked upon the world through the holes in yonder skulls." "These are the shields they bore, and those are the skulls they wore," answered one. "See, Mopo, son of Makedama, this is no man's work that has brought them to their death.
"Greeting, son of Makedama!" they said. "The king summons you to the Intunkulu" that is the royal house, my father. "Good!" I answered. "I will come now; but first I would run to my own place to see how it goes with Macropha, my wife. Here is that which the king seeks," and I showed them the dead child. "Take it to him if you will." "That is not the king's command, Mopo," they answered.
Tongue of the King, thou who are named Mopo, or Umbopa, Son of Makedama; thou forgettest certain words which the Inkosazana whispered to thee when she threw her cloak about thy head ere thou fleddest away from the Council of the King. Of course, we do not know the words, but why dost thou not repeat them, Tongue of the King?"
"Mourn, people of the Langeni; let the voice of your mourning beat against the skies and rend them. "Ou-ai! Ou-ai! Ou-ai!" Thus sang the old man, my father Makedama, far down in the deeps of the cleft. He sang it in a still, small voice, but, line after line, his song was caught up by the thousands who stood on the slopes above, and thundered to the heavens till the mountains shook with its sound.
All the thousands of the people also fell on their hands and knees, and praised the king aloud, and the sound of their praising was like the sound of a great thunder. At length Makedama, my father, writhing on his breast like a snake, lay before the majesty of the king.
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