Now the King started slightly, and I, too, marking that royal stamp which rested upon Lalusini, saw for the first time a certain degree of likeness between them.
“Of my father I cannot speak,” she went on. “My mother was Laliwa, sister of Matyobane.”
“Au!”
“A wonder!” broke from myself and the King at once. For she had named one of the inferior wives of Tshaka the Terrible. Well might we cry out in amazement. This strange beautiful woman, this sorceress of the Bakoni, whose witcheries had inspired both of us with love for her, was of the royal house of Senzangakona, was the daughter of that mighty king, the terror of whose name spread as far as it was known—and even among ourselves—the great Tshaka, from whom we had revolted and fled. Truly indeed had she spoken when saying that she came of a stock greater than that of Umzilikazi.
“Wonderful things have we heard to-day,” said the King. Then jestingly: “Say, daughter of the Lion whose roar is now silent! Here is a valiant fighter, my war-captain and councillor, Untúswa. Wouldst thou not wed with such, the gates of the isigodhlo being now closed?”
Lalusini turned her eyes full upon me for the first time, and the glance expressed amusement, yet beneath it I could discern something more.
“Did I mate with any, it would indeed be with such a warrior,” she said. “But this is not the day for thoughts of such things, O son of Matyobane, for great events are maturing.”
“And these events—are they for good or for ill?” said Umzilikazi.
“For good or for ill? Ha! There is a darkness over the earth, yet not the darkness of night. Lo, I see the world beneath the glow of the full moon, and it is bright as noonday, though softer. And now it is dark, and the face of the moon is wrapped in blackness until it shines forth once more. Then beware, King and founder of a new nation; for the scream of the vultures is borne upon the winds from afar, crying that a banquet awaits—yes, a banquet awaits!”
Now, Lalusini had sunk back into the state of one who dreams, and when she awakened, returning as it were to earth once more, she seemed not to know what words she had uttered, or, indeed, if she had uttered any. But the King and I forgot them not, and often afterwards did we talk them over together.