“And to-morrow we must walk far,” went on Sususa.

“Yes, chief.”

“Say, then, will you sit here on the veldt, or——­” and he nodded towards the river.

The man dropped his head on his breast for a minute as though in thought.  Presently he lifted it and looked Sususa straight in the face.

“My ankle pains me, my brother,” he said; “I think I will go back to Zululand, for there is the only kraal I wish to see again, even if I creep about it like a snake."[*]

     [*] The Zulus believe that after death their spirits enter
     into the bodies of large green snakes, which glide about the
     kraals.  To kill these snakes is sacrilege.

“It is well, my brother,” said the chief.  “Rest softly,” and having shaken hands with him, he gave an order to one of the indunas, and turned away.

Then men came, and, supporting the wounded man, led him down to the banks of the stream.  Here, at his request, they tied a heavy stone round his neck, and then threw him into a deep pool.  I saw the whole sad scene, and the victim never even winced.  It was impossible not to admire the extraordinary courage of the man, or to avoid being struck with the cold-blooded cruelty of his brother the chief.  And yet the act was necessary from his point of view.  The man must either die swiftly, or be left to perish of starvation, for no Zulu force will encumber itself with wounded men.  Years of merciless warfare had so hardened these people that they looked on death as nothing, and were, to do them justice, as willing to meet it themselves as to inflict it on others.  When this very Impi had been sent out by the Zulu King Dingaan, it consisted of some nine thousand men.  Now it numbered less than three; all the rest were dead.  They, too, would probably soon be dead.  What did it matter?  They lived by war to die in blood.  It was their natural end.  “Kill till you are killed.”  That is the motto of the Zulu soldier.  It has the merit of simplicity.

Meanwhile the warriors were looting the waggons, including my own, having first thrown all the dead Boers into a heap.  I looked at the heap; all of them were there, including the two stout fraus, poor things.  But I missed one body, that of Hans Botha’s daughter, little Tota.  A wild hope came into my heart that she might have escaped; but no, it was not possible.  I could only pray that she was already at rest.

Just then the great Zulu, Bombyane, who had left my side to indulge in the congenial occupation of looting, came out of a waggon crying that he had got the “little white one.”  I looked; he was carrying the child Tota, gripping her frock in one of his huge black hands.  He stalked up to where we were, and held the child before the chief.  “Is it dead, father?” he said, with a laugh.

Now, as I could well see, the child was not dead, but had been hidden away, and fainted with fear.

The chief glanced at it carelessly, and said—­