I could trace the whole plan of the building and visited that part of it which had been Marnham’s room.  The iron safe that stood in the corner had been taken away, but the legs of the bedstead remained.  Also not far from it, over grown with running plants, was a little heap which I took to be the ashes of his desk, for bits of burnt wood protruded.  I grubbed among them with my foot and riding crop and presently came across the remains of a charred human skull.  Then I departed in a hurry.

My way took me through the Yellow-wood grove, past the horns of the blue wildebeeste which still lay there, past that mud-hole also into which Rodd had fallen dead.  Here, however, I made no more search, who had seen enough of bones.  To this day I do not know whether he still lies beneath the slimy ooze, or was removed and buried.

Also I saw the site of our wagon camp where the Basutos attacked us.  But I will have done with these reminiscences which induce melancholy, though really there is no reason why they should.

Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe—­everything wears out, everything crumbles, everything vanishes—­in the words of the French proverb that my friend Sir Henry Curtis is so fond of quoting, that at last I wrote it down in my pocket-book, only to remember afterwards that when I was a boy I had heard it from the lips of an old scamp of a Frenchman, of the name of Leblanc, who once gave me and another lessons in the Gallic tongue.  But of him I have already written in Marie, which is the first chapter in the Book of the fall of the Zulus.  That headed Child of Storm is the second.  These pages form the third and last.

Ah! indeed, tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe!

CHAPTER XXIII

THE KRAAL JAZI

Now I shall pass over all the Zulu record of the next four years, since after all it has nothing to do with my tale and I do not pretend to be writing a history.

Sir Garnet Wolseley set up his Kilkenny cat Government in Zululand, or the Home Government did it for him, I do not know which.  In place of one king, thirteen chiefs were erected who got to work to cut the throats of each other and of the people.

As I expected would be the case, Zikali informed the military authorities of the secret hiding-place in the Ingome Forest where he suggested to Cetewayo that he should refuge.  The ex-king was duly captured there and taken first to the Cape and then to England, where, after the disgrace of poor Sir Bartle Frere, an agitation had been set on foot on his behalf.  Here he saw the Queen and her ministers, once more conquering, as it had been prophesied that he would by her who wore the shape of Mameena at the memorable scene in the Valley of Bones when I was present.  Often I have thought of him dressed in a black coat and seated in that villa in Melbury Road in the suburb