Now, my father, I tell you that the marrow melted in my bones with

terror, for if I undid the mat I feared he must see the child and
then--"

"It is tagati, it is bewitched, O king. It is not wise to look on
medicine."

"Open!" he answered angrily. "What? may I not look at that which I am
forced to swallow--I, who am the first of doctors?"

"Death is the king's medicine," I answered, lifting the bundle, and
laying it as far from him in the shadow of the fence as I dared. Then

I bent over it, slowly undoing the rimpis with which it was tied,
while the sweat of terror ran down by face blinding me like tears.

What would I do if he saw the child? What if the child awoke and
cried? I would snatch the assegai from his hand and stab him! Yes, I

would kill the king and then kill myself! Now the mat was unrolled.
Inside were the brown leaves and roots of medicine; beneath them was

the senseless bade wrapped in dead moss.
"Ugly stuff," said the king, taking snuff. "Now see, Mopo, what a good

aim I have! This for thy medicine!" And he lifted his assegai to throw
it through the bundle. But as he threw, my snake put it into the

king's heart to sneeze, and thus it came to pass that the assegai only
pierced the outer leaves of the medicine, and did not touch the child.

"May the heavens bless the king!" I said, according to custom.
"Thanks to thee, Mopo, it is a good omen," he answered. "And now,

begone! Take my advice: kill thy children, as I kill mine, lest they
live to worry thee. The whelps of lions are best drowned."

I did up the bundle fast--fast, though my hands trembled. Oh! what if
the child should wake and cry. It was done; I rose and saluted the

king. Then I doubled myself up and passed from before him. Scarcely
was I outside the gates of the Intunkulu when the infant began to

squeak in the bundle. If it had been one minute before!
"What," said a soldier, as I passed, "have you got a puppy hidden

under your moocha,[1] Mopo?"
[1] Girdle composed of skin and tails of oxen.-ED.

I made no answer, but hurried on till I came to my huts. I entered;
there were my two wives alone.

"I have recovered the child, women," I said, as I undid the bundle.
Anadi took him and looked at him.

"The boy seems bigger than he was," she said.
"The breath of life has come into him and puffed him out," I answered.

"His eyes are not as his eyes were," she said again. "Now they are big
and black, like the eyes of the king."

"My spirit looked upon his eyes and made them beautiful," I answered.
"This child has a birth-mark on his thigh," she said a third time.

"That which I gave you had no mark."
"I laid my medicine there," I answered.

"It is not the same child," she said sullenly. "It is a changeling who
will lay ill-luck at our doors."

Then I rose up in my rage and cursed her heavily, for I saw that if
she was not stopped this woman's tongue would bring us all to ruin.

"Peace, witch!" I cried. "How dare you to speak thus from a lying
heart? Do you wish to draw down a curse upon our roof? Would you make

us all food for the king's spear? Say such words again, and you shall
sit within the circle--the Ingomboco shall know you for a witch!"

So I stormed on, threatening to bring her to death, till at length she
grew fearful, and fell at my feet praying for mercy and forgiveness.

But I was much afraid because of this woman's tongue, and not without
reason.

CHAPTER VII
UMSLOPOGAAS ANSWERS THE KING

Now the years went on, and this matter slept. Nothing more was heard
of it, but still it only slept; and, my father, I feared greatly for

the hour when it should awake. For the secret was known by two women--
Unandi, Mother of the Heavens, and Baleka, my sister, wife of the

king; and by two more--Macropha and Anadi, my wives--it was guessed
at. How, then, should it remain a secret forever? Moreover, it came

about that Unandi and Baleka could not restrain their fondness for
this child who was called my son and named Umslopogaas, but who was

the son of Chaka, the king, and of the Baleka, and the grandson of
Unandi. So it happened that very often one or the other of them would

come into my hut, making pretence to visit my wives, and take the boy
upon her lap and fondle it. In vain did I pray them to forbear. Love

pulled at their heart-strings more heavily than my words, and still
they came. This was the end of it--that Chaka saw the child sitting on

the knee of Unandi, his mother.
"What does my mother with that brat of thine, Mopo?" he asked of me.

"Cannot she kiss me, if she will find a child to kiss?" And he laughed
like a wolf.

I said that I did not know, and the matter passed over for awhile. But
after that Chaka caused his mother to be watched. Now the boy

Umslopogaas grew great and strong; there was no such lad of his years
for a day's journey round. But from a babe he was somewhat surly, of

few words, and like his father, Chaka, afraid of nothing. In all the
world there were but two people whom he loved--these were I, Mopo, who

was called his father, and Nada, she who was said to be his twin
sister.

Now it must be told of Nada that as the boy Umslopogaas was the
strongest and bravest of children, so the girl Nada was the gentlest

and most fair. Of a truth, my father, I believe that her blood was not
all Zulu, though this I cannot say for certain. At the least, her eyes

were softer and larger than those of our people, her hair longer and
less tightly curled, and her skin was lighter--more of the colour of

pure copper. These things she had from her mother, Macropha; though
she was fairer than Macropha--fairer, indeed, than any woman of my

people whom I have seen. Her mother, Macropha, my wife, was of Swazi
blood, and was brought to the king's kraal with other captives after a

raid, and given to me as a wife by the king. It was said that she was
the daughter of a Swazi headman of the tribe of the Halakazi, and that

she was born of his wife is true, but whether he was her father I do
not know; for I have heard from the lips of Macropha herself, that

before she was born there was a white man staying at her father's
kraal. He was a Portuguese from the coast, a handsome man, and skilled

in the working of iron. This white man loved the mother of my wife,
Macropha, and some held that Macropha was his daughter, and not that

of the Swazi headman. At least I know this, that before my wife's
birth the Swazi killed the white man. But none can tell the truth of

these matters, and I only speak of them because the beauty of Nada was
rather as is the beauty of the white people than of ours, and this

might well happen if her grandfather chanced to be a white man.
Now Umslopogaas and Nada were always together. Together they ate,

together they slept and wandered; they thought one thought and spoke
with one tongue. Ou! it was pretty to see them! Twice while they were

still children did Umslopogaas save the life of Nada.
The first time it came about thus. The two children had wandered far

from the kraal, seeking certain berries that little ones love. On they
wandered and on, singing as they went, till at length they found the

berries, and ate heartily. Then it was near sundown, and when they had
eaten they fell asleep. In the night they woke to find a great wind

blowing and a cold rain falling on them, for it was the beginning of
winter, when fruits are ripe.

"Up, Nada!" said Umslopogaas, "we must seek the kraal or the cold will
kill us."

So Nada rose, frightened, and hand in hand they stumbled through the
darkness. But in the wind and the night they lost their path, and when

at length the dawn came they were in a forest that was strange to
them. They rested awhile, and finding berries ate them, then walked

again. All that day they wandered, till at last the night came down,
and they plucked branches of trees and piled the branches over them

for warmth, and they were so weary that they fell asleep in each
other's arms. At dawn they rose, but now they were very tired and

berries were few, sot hat by midday they were spent. Then they lay
down on the side of a steep hill, and Nada laid her head upon the

breast of Umslopogaas.
"Here let us die, my brother," she said.

But even then the boy had a great spirit, and he answered, "Time to
die, sister, when Death chooses us. See, now! Do you rest here, and I

will climb the hill and look across the forest."
So he left her and climbed the hill, and on its side he found many

berries and a root that is good for food, and filled himself with
them. At length he came to the crest of the hill and looked out across

the sea of green. Lo! there, far away to the east, he saw a line of
white that lay like smoke against the black surface of a cliff, and

knew it for the waterfall beyond the royal town. Then he came down the
hill, shouting for joy and bearing roots and berries in his hand. But

when he reached the spot where Nada was, he found that her senses had
left her through hunger, cold, and weariness. She lay upon the ground

like one asleep, and over her stood a jackal that fled as he drew
nigh. Now it would seem that there but two shoots to the stick of

Umslopogaas. One was to save himself, and the other to lie down and
die by Nada. Yet he found a third, for, undoing the strips of his

moocha, he made ropes of them, and with the ropes he bound Nada on his
back and started for the king's kraal. He could never have reached it,

for the way was long, yet at evening some messengers running through
the forest came upon a naked lad with a girl bound to his back and a

staff in his hand, who staggered along slowly with starting eyes and
foam upon his lips. He could not speak, he was so weary, and the ropes

had cut through the skin of his shoulders; yet one of the messengers
knew him for Umslopogaas, the son of Mopo, and they bore him to the

kraal. They would have left the girl Nada, thinking her dead, but he
pointed to her breast, and, feeling it, they found that her heart

still beat, so they brought her also; and the end of it was that both
recovered and loved each other more than ever before.

Now after this, I, Mopo, bade Umslopogaas stay at home within the
kraal, and not lead his sister to the wilds. But the boy loved roaming

like a fox, and where he went there Nada followed. So it came about
that one day they slipped from the kraal when the gates were open, and

sought out a certain deep glen which had an evil name, for it was said
that spirits haunted it and put those to death who entered there.

Whether this was true I do not know, but I know that in the glen dwelt
a certain woman of the woods, who had her habitation in a cave and

lived upon what she could kill or steal or dig up with her hands. Now
this woman was mad. For it had chanced that her husband had been

"smelt out" by the witch-doctors as a worker of magic against the
king, and slain. Then Chaka, according to custom, despatched the

slayers to eat up his kraal, and they came to the kraal and killed his
people. Last of all they killed his children, three young girls, and

would have assegaied their mother, when suddenly a spirit entered into
her at the sight, and she went mad, so that they let her go, being

afraid to touch her afterwards. So she fled and took up her abode in
the haunted glen; and this was the nature of her madness, that

whenever she saw children, and more especially girl children, a
longing came upon her to kill them as her own had been killed. This,

indeed, she did often, for when the moon was full and her madness at
its highest, she would travel far to find children, snatching them

away from the kraals like a hyena. Still, none would touch her because
of the spirit in her, not even those whose children she had murdered.

So Umslopogaas and Nada came to the glen where the child-slayer lived,
and sat down by a pool of water not far from the mouth of her cave,

weaving flowers into a garland. Presently Umslopogaas left Nada, to
search for rock lilies which she loved. As he went he called back to

her, and his voice awoke the woman who was sleeping in her cave, for
she came out by night only, like a jackal. Then the woman stepped

forth, smelling blood and having a spear in her hand. Presently she
saw Nada seated upon the grass weaving flowers, and crept towards her

to kill her. Now as she came--so the child told me--suddenly a cold
wind seemed to breathe upon Nada, and fear took hold of her, though

she did not see the woman who would murder her. She let fall the
flowers, and looked before her into the pool, and there, mirrored in

the pool, she saw the greedy face of the child-slayer, who crept down
upon her from above, her hair hanging about her brow and her eyes

shining like the eyes of a lion.
Then with a cry Nada sprang up and fled along the path which

• bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• snatch [snætʃ] v.&n.抢，夺取，抓住 (初中英语单词)
• infant [´infənt] n.&a.婴(幼)儿 (初中英语单词)
• breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
• fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
• moreover [mɔ:´rəuvə] ad.再者，此外，而且 (初中英语单词)
• awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
• copper [´kɔpə] n.铜 a.铜制的 (初中英语单词)
• working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
• grandfather [´grænd,fɑ:ðə] n.(外)祖父；祖先 (初中英语单词)
• beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
• warmth [wɔ:mθ] n.温暖；热情；激动 (初中英语单词)
• hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
• running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
• haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
• worker [´wə:kə] n.工人；劳动者；工作者 (初中英语单词)
• presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
• sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
• greedy [´gri:di] a.贪婪的；馋的 (初中英语单词)
• sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
• angrily [´æŋgrili] ad.生气地；愤怒地 (高中英语单词)
• girdle [´gə:dl] n.腰带 vt.用带束(缠) (高中英语单词)
• hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
• restrain [ri´strein] vt.抑制；管束；限制 (高中英语单词)
• pretence [pri´tens] n.假装；托词；无理要求 (高中英语单词)
• tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
• heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
• finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
• waterfall [´wɔ:təfɔ:l] n.瀑布 (高中英语单词)
• bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
• madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
• garland [´gɑ:lənd] n.花环 vt.给带花环 (高中英语单词)
• hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
• senseless [´sensləs] a.无知觉的；愚蠢的 (英语四级单词)
• sneeze [sni:z] n.&vi.(打)喷嚏(声) (英语四级单词)
• composed [kəm´pəuzd] a.镇静自若的 (英语四级单词)
• grandson [´grænsʌn] n.孙子；外孙子 (英语四级单词)
• forbear [fɔ:´beə, fə-] v.容忍；克制 n.祖先 (英语四级单词)
• portuguese [,pɔ:tʃu´gi:z] a.葡萄牙的 n.葡萄牙人 (英语四级单词)
• midday [´middei] n.中午 (英语四级单词)
• weariness [wiərinis] n.疲倦；厌烦 (英语四级单词)
• habitation [,hæbi´teiʃən] n.居住；住所 (英语四级单词)
• marrow [´mærəu] n.(骨)髓；精华；活力 (英语六级单词)
• taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
• sullenly [´sʌlənli] ad.不高兴地 (英语六级单词)
• fondness [´fɔndnis] n.蠢事；溺爱；嗜好 (英语六级单词)
• sundown [´sʌndaun] n.日落 (英语六级单词)