“What do you mean?” asked Panda angrily.  “Have you not heard this low fellow, whom I made great, giving him the rule over tribes and my daughter in marriage, confess with his own lips that he murdered his child, the child of my blood, in order that he might eat a fruit which grew by the roadside for all men to nibble at?” and he glared at Mameena.

“Aye, Child of Senzangakona,” answered Zikali, “I heard Saduko say this with his own lips, but the voice that spoke from the lips was not the voice of Saduko, as, were you a skilled Nyanga like me, you would have known as well as I do, and as well as does the white man, Watcher-by-Night, who is a reader of hearts.

“Hearken now, O King, and you great ones around the King, and I will tell you a story.  Matiwane, the father of Saduko, was my friend, as he was yours, O King, and when Bangu slew him and his people, by leave of the Wild Beast [Chaka], I saved the child, his son, aye, and brought him up in my own House, having learned to love him.  Then, when he became a man, I, the Opener-of-Roads, showed him two roads, down either of which he might choose to walk—­the Road of Wisdom and the Road of War and Women:  the white road that runs through peace to knowledge, and the red road that runs through blood to death.

“But already there stood one upon this red road who beckoned him, she who sits yonder, and he followed after her, as I knew he would.  From the beginning she was false to him, taking a richer man for her husband.  Then, when Saduko grew great, she grew sorry, and came to ask my counsel as to how she might be rid of Masapo, whom she swore she hated.  I told her that she could leave him for another man, or wait till her Spirit moved him from her path; but I never put evil into her heart, seeing that it was there already.

“Then she and no other, having first made Saduko love her more than ever, murdered the child of Nandie, his Inkosikazi; and so brought about the death of Masapo and crept into Saduko’s arms.  Here she slept a while, till a new shadow fell upon her, that of the ‘Elephant-with-the-tuft-of-hair,’ who will walk the woods no more.  Him she beguiled that she might grow great the quicker, and left the house of Saduko, taking his heart with her, she who was destined to be the doom of men.

“Now, into Saduko’s breast, where his heart had been, entered an evil spirit of jealousy and of revenge, and in the battle of Endondakusuka that spirit rode him as a white man rides a horse.  As he had arranged to do with the Prince Cetewayo yonder—­nay, deny it not, O Prince, for I know all; did you not make a bargain together, on the third night before the battle, among the bushes, and start apart when the buck leapt out between you?” (Here Cetewayo, who had been about to speak, threw the corner of his kaross over his face.) “As he had arranged to do, I say, he went over with his regiments from the Isigqosa to the Usutu, and so brought