“By the name thou spakest just now, Black Elephant—Queen of the Bakoni múti, Now of what use is múti if it fails in the day of necessity?”
“Thy story I will yet hear,” answered the King. “Now say, Lalusini, knowest thou Untúswa?”
“Untúswa? I seem to have heard that name. Surely it was that of the King’s messenger, who with only one young man, and he unringed, did hold the Bakoni in defiance like a lion at bay.”
“And thou hast not beheld him since that day?”
“I think not, Great Great One—and that day only from afar did I behold him. Nay I saw him once at the council, and then nearer. He was a tall man, who carried a very large spear.”
“Look around, my sister, and tell me if he is here to-day,” said the King.
Lalusini looked first among such groups of warriors as were mustered around. Then she stepped over to the assemblage of izinduna among whom I sat, and looked long and earnestly. Umzilikazi, meanwhile, was watching her narrowly.
“I think that is the King’s messenger,” she said, gazing into my face. “He has the look of such a warrior as that one was.”
But before anything more could be said Nangeza sprang forward, and her eyes were glittering with hate, and in her voice was a snarl as that of a wild beast.
“She is the witch whom Untúswa saved from the slaughter, reserving her for himself. Look, O King! Now they pretend not to know each other,” shrieked Nangeza, darting her hand furiously forth as though it contained a weapon.