Why should he not have done so, seeing that it was my presence he had desired, not theirs?  They were only taken, or rather snared, because they were with me and could not be separated, or so I believed at the time.

One ray of comfort I did get.  About the fifth day after my interview I saw Goza, who told me that the king’s messengers were back from the Black Kloof and had brought “a word” for me from Zikali himself.  The word was—­

“Bid Goza say to Macumazahn that I was sorry not to see him to say good-bye, because that morning I slept heavily.  Bid him say that I am glad he has seen the king, since for this purpose I sought his presence in Zululand.  Bid him say that he is to fear nothing, and that if his heart is heavy about others whom he loves, he should make it light again, since the Spirits have them in their keeping as they have him, and never were they or he more safe than they are to-day.”

Now I looked at Goza and asked if I could see this messenger.  He replied, No, as he had already been despatched upon another errand.  Then I asked him if the messenger had said anything else.  He answered, Yes, one thing that he had forgotten, namely that the writing about blankets should now be in Natal.  Then suddenly he changed the subject and asked me if I would like to accompany him to the Valley of Bones where he was ordered to inspect the huts which were being built for Zikali and his people.  Of course I said I should, hoping, quite without result, that I might get something more out of him on the road.

Now this town of Cetewayo’s stands, or rather stood, for it has long been burnt, on the slope of the hills to the north-east of the plains of Ulundi.  Above it these hills grow steeper, and deep in the recesses of one of them is the Valley of Bones.  There is nothing particularly imposing about the place; no towering cliffs or pillars of piled granite, as at the Black Kloof.  It is just a vale cut out by water, bordered by steep slopes on either side, and a still steeper slope strown with large rocks at its end.  Dotted here and there on these slopes grew tall aloes that from a little distance looked like scattered men, whereof the lower leaves were shrivelled and blackened by veld fires.  Also there were a few euphorbias, grey, naked-looking things that end in points like fingers on a hand, and among them some sparse thorn trees, struggling to live in an inhospitable soil.

The place has one peculiarity.  Jutting into it from the hillside is a ridge or spur, sixty or seventy yards in length by perhaps twenty broad, that ends in a flat point of rock which stands about forty feet above the level of the rest of the little valley.  On this ridge also grew tall aloes until near its extremity the soil ceased, or had been washed away from the water-worn core of rock.