Now Lalusini began to sing in a strange, far-distant tone, and low, but the words were in the Bakoni tongue, and were mysterious enough even to me. And the song was of a shield, and seemed to tell of battle and of blood.
“See, Great Great One,” she cried, ceasing, and pointing to the white shield which the King had given me. “He who bears yonder shield must not part from it, even for a space, until after the blackness of the moon. Then it may be that he will part with it forever—yet not.”
Her words were dark now, yet, in the fulness of time, were they to be made plain enough. But the King, dissatisfied, pressed for an explanation.
“Seek not to look into the mysteries of my magic, son of Matyobane,” she replied, utterly fearless, “for to do so is to render them evil.”
“And I fear not such. No dread do I stand in of the sorcery of any. Ask now, my sister—where is Isilwane, once head of the izanusi? Where Notalwa—and others?” said Umzilikazi, frowning.
“Yet, let will be. Say, Calf of a Black Bull—was my múti for good or for ill, that guided the shield now borne by Untúswa? The magic of the Bakoni is as superior to that of the Amazulu as the might in battle of these last is to that of the peoples they have made an end of.”
“What now is thy story, my sister?” said the King, leaving that question. And some of her story Lalusini gave us then and there—how that she alone of all his children would Tshakathe Mighty recognise, even if there were any others who were not slain, for that King desired not children, lest, growing up, they should plot against him and depose him. Lalusini, however, he destined to some great though hidden end, and caused the land far and wide to be searched for those who could teach her the deeper and most hidden mysteries of their magic. Then it befell that the two brothers of Tshaka—Dingane and Mhlangana—rose up against the Great One and slew him, and Lalusini with her mother, Laliwa, and some others, fled afar to escape the death of the spear, and after many wanderings and perils reached the land of the Bakoni, which they deemed remote enough from Dingane. Here Tauane, the chief of that people, would have wedded her, but she would have none of him or his plans.
“Au! that dog who is burnt!” cried Umzilikazi. “I would he were here again, that I might make him once more taste fire. Au! A dog, to think to blend the branches of the royal stem of Senzangakona with the rank weeds of his jackal tribe.”
“Not to no purpose had I learned the magic of the wise,” went on Lalusini. “I divined your coming, Great Great One; yes, long before Untúswa’s first embassy appeared in the land, and I welcomed it. Nothing of it did I say in warning to Tauane and the People of the Blue Coloured Cattle, save darkly, and, as it were, in jest. And they mocked.”
“If you welcomed our coming, my sister, why didst thou disappear into air for a space thereafter?” said Umzilikazi cunningly.