“That cannot be, Great Great One!” she answered.
“Cannot be? Ha!” cried Umzilikazi, gazing at her in displeasure and amazement. “Are, then, the wishes of a King to be uttered twice?”
“Thou art all-powerful, O Black Elephant,” she said. “The elephant may rend down forest-trees and loosen rocks with his might. Yet even he cannot walk against a broad river in flood. There is a law which is greater than even the wishes of the mightiest of kings.”
“What meanest thou, my sister?” said Umzilikazi, in a low but terrible voice.
“Thou doest well to call me thus, son of Matyobane; for within me runs the blood of Matyobane.”
“Ha!”
So great was his astonishment that for a space, save that one amazed gasp, no word could the King utter. Now stood revealed the meaning of that saying of hers; for, Nkose, so strict is this custom among us Amazulu, that no man may take to wife any girl within whose veins runs a drop of his own blood, or, indeed, as to whom exists the barest suspicion that such may be the case. Wherefore, in declaring herself to be of the blood of Umzilikazi’s father, Lalusini knew that even the King himself dare not take her to wife; nor, indeed, would he desire to, once convinced of the truth of her words.
“Is this indeed so?” he said at last, frowning suspiciously, for a king likes not to be balked in the desire of his heart, be the reason never so good.
“Say, then, who was thy father?”
“First look at me; Great Great One. Are we not of a royal tree, we in whom runs the same blood?”