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I forget the story of that woman, for I remember only these things that happened long ago, before I grew very old. Look on this right hand of mine, my father! I cannot see it now; and yet I, Mopo, son of Makedama, seem to see it as once I saw, red with the blood of two kings. Look on Suddenly the old man ceased, his head fell forward upon his withered breast.
I glanced at the king, and, as I did so, I thought that I heard him mutter: "Near the mark, not in it." Then he held up his spear, and all was silence. The slayers stopped in their stride, the witch-doctors stood with outstretched arms, the world of men was as though it had been frozen into sleep. "Hold!" he said. "Stand aside, son of Makedama, who art named an evildoer!
"We are of the children of Makedama," they answered, "and we follow these evildoers who have done wickedness and murder in our kraal. See! but now two of us are dead at their hands, and others lie dead along the road. Suffer that we slay them." "Ask that of the Elephant," said the soldiers; "ask too that he suffer you should not be slain." Just then the tall chief saw blood and heard words.
Thus did the Inkosazana-y-Zoola depart from the Great Place of the King of the Zulus, and Mopo, the son of Makedama, shading his eyes with his hand, watched her go from between his withered fingers. Northward, ever northward, journeyed Rachel with the Ghost-priests; for days and weeks they journeyed, slowly, and for the most part at night, since these people dreaded the glare of the sun.
Thus was Makedama buried beneath the bodies of his people; thus was ended the tribe of the Langeni; as my mother had dreamed, so it came about; and thus did Chaka take vengeance for that cup of milk which was refused to him many a year before. "Thou hast not won thy bet, Mopo," said the king presently. "See there is a little space where one more may find room to sleep.
"Greeting, Mopo, son of Makedama! Thou art the man who smotest blood on the door-posts of the king to bewitch the king. Let thy house be stamped flat!" I saw her come, I felt the blow on my face as a man feels in a dream. I heard the feet of the slayers as they bounded forward to hale me to the dreadful death, but my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth I could not say a word.
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