Before him lay the town—one side shone silver with the sinking moon, one was grey with the breaking dawn. Ah! they were there, he saw them moving through the grass by the eastern gate; he saw the long lines of slayers creep to the left and the right.
How could he pass them before the circle of death was drawn? Six spear-throws to run, and they had but such a little way! The mealie-plants were tall, and at a spot they almost touched the fence. Up the path! Could Umslopogaas, his brother, move more fast, he wondered, than the Wolf who sped to save him? He was there, hidden by the mealie stalks, and there, along the fence to the right and to the left, the slayers crept!
“Wow! What was that?” said one soldier of the king to another man as they joined their guard completing the death circle. “Wow! something great and black crashed through the fence before me.”
“I heard it, brother,” answered the other man. “I heard it, but I saw nothing. It must have been a dog: no man could leap so high.”
“More like a wolf,” said the first; “at the least, let us pray that it was not an Esedowan[[1]] who will put us into the hole in its back. Is your fire ready, brother? Wow! these wizards shall wake warm; the signal should be soon.”
[1] A fabulous animal, reported by the Zulus to carry off human beings in a hole in its back.
Then arose the sound of a great voice crying, “Awake, ye sleepers, the foe is at your gates!”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE END OF THE PEOPLE, BLACK AND GREY
Galazi rushed through the town crying aloud, and behind him rose a stir of men. All slept and no sentinels were set, for Umslopogaas was so lost in his love for the Lily that he forgot his wisdom, and thought no more of war or death or of the hate of Dingaan. Presently the Wolf came to the large new hut which Umslopogaas had caused to be built for Nada the Lily, and entered it, for there he knew that he should find his brother Bulalio. On the far side of the hut the two lay sleeping, and the head of Umslopogaas rested on the Lily’s breast, and by his side gleamed the great axe Groan-Maker.
“Awake!” cried the Wolf.