“For good, Great Great One.”
“Ha! So thou ever sayest. Yet her prophecy as regarded the little one was strange.”
“Strange it was, Black Elephant, but it was not lightly spoken.”
“She is a greater magician than this white man, for no such saying, light or dark, did he ever utter concerning us.”
“That is true, Father. Yet he is a good man.”
“And the sayings of that witch who was thy chief wife, Untúswa. They, too, were strange.”
“Whau! They were the ravings of a jealous and evil-tongued woman, Calf of a Black Bull. But now I am without a chief wife, give me, I pray thee, this sorceress, Father, for there is that about her which I love, O Stabber of the Sun.”
“So, so!” said Umzilikazi, laughing softly, and there was a look on his face which brought back the days when I, being a boy, desired leave to tunga. “So, so, Untúswa? She would make a noble substitute for thy dead witch? Ha! Yet be content, thou holder of the royal spear and the royal shield.”
There was that in the words—in the look—as the King dismissed me which left an uncomfortable load upon my mind; and, indeed, I felt as though I had acted like a fool.
Now, as I returned to the huts I occupied when at Kwa’zingwenya upon the King’s business, my two younger wives came about me with words of love and thankfulness, because my voice had been raised on their behalf when they were adjudged to die the death which had overtaken Nangeza. Yet for these I had no ears and but little patience, for my mind was filled with the Bakoni sorceress. Moreover, I now foresaw strife between these two; for, Nangeza being gone, these would not rest until one or other of them had taken her place, nor would they suffer me to rest—for so it is with women: each must always be the greater. So I answered them but shortly, bidding them gather up their possessions and start back at once to my kraal—happy that they could go back well and strong in the flesh, and not as weeping ghosts whose bodies were dead moaning over the ashes of their former home. But for my part I chose to remain at Kwa’zingwenya for a space, for I feared lest Lalusini should escape me again. Yet was I as powerless with regard to her as the lowest of our Amaholi; for was not her life the property of the King, even as the lives of all of us? Truly within the nation I was great. Yet did my will cross that of the King and—Au! where is the smoke of yesterday’s fire?