“My brother,” answered Grenville, laying a hand kindly on the shoulder of his stalwart friend, “knowest thou that, because of thy departure, he has sentenced thee to death; ay, thee, and Barad the Hailstorm with thee.”
“Nay, my father,” replied the Zulu, “I knew it not, nor do I care whether I live or die; yet do I think the ancient one will gladly hear my words.”
Quickly returning to the public hall, Kenyon sent in word to the old Prophet that the Zulu chief had returned of his own accord, and had news of much importance for his private ear.
A few minutes elapsed, and then all were ushered into the united presence of the Holy Three, where, utterly disregarding the frowning looks cast upon him, the great Zulu thus commenced his stirring tale:—
“Hear my words, O ye ancient ones, and let the message of the child of the Zulu sink down into your ears; for his words are heavy words to hear, yet come they from a straight and friendly tongue.”
Then addressing himself to Grenville, “Yesternight, my father,” he began, speaking rapidly and forcibly in Zulu—“yesternight I had it in my mind that Zero, the Black One, would escape and break his bonds, and in the same mind was also the Chieftain of the Stick; he knew no speech of mine, nor knew I aught of his, my father, yet eye looked into eye, and each knew well the secret thought of each.
“We soon slipped past the sleepy guards and out into the night, but naught had we in our hands, my father, and so we left behind the ruined kraals, and hid us in the bushes by the well.
“Long did we wait, but yet we had no doubt, and, so when half the night was gone, there came to us the ghost of him, the ancient one, who dwells in yon lonely grave upon the northern hills—alas! my father, that I let him pass me by, but empty hands are evil things wherewith to face a well-armed spook, and in his grasp he swung a mighty axe, dripping with human blood.
“And so we waited, and when the Father of the Spooks had left us half-an-hour, then my thought changed, and I knew it was no spook that passed us by, but the black one, Zero himself, escaped in Muzi Zimba’s dress, and so I beckoned to Barad, my father, and down the well we went to follow on his trail; but when we reached the narrow mountain pass, we found it all blocked up with mighty rocks rolled from above, so that we could not move them. Then climbed we forth again, and, skirting round the mountain, we filled our ready hands with arms from the dead who lie out yonder; and so sped we onwards through the night running our utmost speed, but naught did we see, my father, until at dawn we struck the Black One’s footsteps crossing the western veldt, and these we followed till the sun grew hot at noon, and so we tracked him to the thorn-girt kraal of a mighty host of low black fellows; those men, they were, my father, whose king was here when first we hither came.
“Lying hid, O chief, we watched, as well we might, and when the sun went down, the host set out, led forward by the Black One, and the track they took, my father, was the track of the women and the children who have gone towards the sea.