Now some attendants sprang on the luckless Movo and began to beat him with their sticks. Still, before he reached the gates he succeeded in turning round weeping in good earnest and shouted:
“It is quite useless, O King, all my cattle are dead, too. They will find nothing but the horns and the hoofs, for I have sold the hides to the shield-makers.”
Then they thrust him forth.
He was gone, and for a while there was silence, for despair filled the hearts of the King and his Councillors, as they gazed at Rachel dismayed, wondering within themselves how they might be rid of her and of the evils which she had brought upon them because of the blood of her people which lay at their doors.
Whilst they still stared thus in silence yet another messenger came running through the gate like one in great haste.
“Now I am minded to order this fellow to be killed before he opens his mouth,” said Dingaan, “for of a surety he also is a bearer of ill-tidings.”
“Nay, O King,” cried out the man in alarm, “my news is only that an embassy awaits without.”
“From whom?” asked Dingaan anxiously. “The white Amaboona?”
“Nay, O King, from the queen of the Ghost-people to whom thou didst dispatch Noie, daughter of Seyapi, a while ago.”
Hearing the name Noie, Rachel lifted her head, and for the first time her face grew human.