“Now, hearken.  Although I am the colour of copper, I am comely.  I am well-bred also; there is no higher blood than ours in Zululand, both on my father’s and my mother’s side, and, Macumazahn, I have a fire in me that shows me things.  I can be great, and I long for greatness.  Take me to wife, Macumazahn, and I swear to you that in ten years I will make you king of the Zulus.  Forget your pale white women and wed yourself to that fire which burns in me, and it shall eat up all that stands between you and the Crown, as flame eats up dry grass.  More, I will make you happy.  If you choose to take other wives, I will not be jealous, because I know that I should hold your spirit, and that, compared to me, they would be nothing in your thought—­”

“But, Mameena,” I broke in, “I don’t want to be king of the Zulus.”

“Oh, yes, yes, you do, for every man wants power, and it is better to rule over a brave, black people—­thousands and thousands of them—­than to be no one among the whites.  Think, think!  There is wealth in the land.  By your skill and knowledge the amabuto [regiments] could be improved; with the wealth you would arm them with guns—­yes, and ‘by-and-byes’ also with the throat of thunder” (that is, or was, the Kafir name for cannon).* “They would be invincible.  Chaka’s kingdom would be nothing to ours, for a hundred thousand warriors would sleep on their spears, waiting for your word.  If you wished it even you could sweep out Natal and make the whites there your subjects, too.  Or perhaps it would be safer to let them be, lest others should come across the green water to help them, and to strike northwards, where I am told there are great lands as rich and fair, in which none would dispute our sovereignty—­”

[*—­Cannon were called “by-and-byes” by the natives, because when field-pieces first arrived in Natal inquisitive Kafirs pestered the soldiers to show them how they were fired.  The answer given was always “By-and-bye!” Hence the name.—­EDITOR]

“But, Mameena,” I gasped, for this girl’s titanic ambition literally overwhelmed me, “surely you are mad!  How would you do all these things?”

“I am not mad,” she answered; “I am only what is called great, and you know well enough that I can do them, not by myself, who am but a woman and tied with the ropes that bind women, but with you to cut those ropes and help me.  I have a plan which will not fail.  But, Macumazahn,” she added in a changed voice, “until I know that you will be my partner in it I will not tell it even to you, for perhaps you might talk—­in your sleep, and then the fire in my breast would soon go out—­for ever.”

“I might talk now, for the matter of that, Mameena.”

“No; for men like you do not tell tales of foolish girls who chance to love them.  But if that plan began to work, and you heard say that kings or princes died, it might be otherwise.  You might say, ’I think I know where the witch lives who causes these evils’—­in your sleep, Macumazahn.”