“Very little, King.  I have been trading here, as I daresay you have heard, and have sold all my goods.  Now I ask your leave to hunt buffalo, and other big game, for a while before I return to Natal.”

“I cannot grant it,” answered Cetywayo, “you are a spy sent by Sompseu, or by the Queen’s Induna in Natal.  Get you gone.”

“Indeed,” said Hadden, with a shrug of his shoulders; “then I hope that Sompseu, or the Queen’s Induna, or both of them, will pay me when I return to my own country.  Meanwhile I will obey you because I must, but I should first like to make you a present.”

“What present?” asked the king.  “I want no presents.  We are rich here, White Man.”

“So be it, King.  It was nothing worthy of your taking, only a rifle.”

“A rifle, White Man?  Where is it?”

“Without.  I would have brought it, but your servants told me that it is death to come armed before the ‘Elephant who shakes the Earth.’”

Cetywayo frowned, for the note of sarcasm did not escape his quick ear.

“Let this white man’s offering be brought; I will consider the thing.”

Instantly the Induna who had accompanied Hadden darted to the gateway, running with his body bent so low that it seemed as though at every step he must fall upon his face.  Presently he returned with the weapon in his hand and presented it to the king, holding it so that the muzzle was pointed straight at the royal breast.

“I crave leave to say, O Elephant,” remarked Hadden in a drawling voice, “that it might be well to command your servant to lift the mouth of that gun from your heart.”

“Why?” asked the king.

“Only because it is loaded, and at full cock, O Elephant, who probably desires to continue to shake the Earth.”

At these words the “Elephant” uttered a sharp exclamation, and rolled from his stool in a most unkingly manner, whilst the terrified Induna, springing backwards, contrived to touch the trigger of the rifle and discharge a bullet through the exact spot that a second before had been occupied by his monarch’s head.

“Let him be taken away,” shouted the incensed king from the ground, but long before the words had passed his lips the Induna, with a cry that the gun was bewitched, had cast it down and fled at full speed through the gate.

“He has already taken himself away,” suggested Hadden, while the audience tittered.  “No, King, do not touch it rashly; it is a repeating rifle.  Look——­” and lifting the Winchester, he fired the four remaining shots in quick succession into the air, striking the top of a tree at which he aimed with every one of them.

“Wow, it is wonderful!” said the company in astonishment.

“Has the thing finished?” asked the king.

“For the present it has,” answered Hadden.  “Look at it.”

Cetywayo took the repeater in his hand, and examined it with caution, swinging the muzzle horizontally in an exact line with the stomachs of some of his most eminent Indunas, who shrank to this side and that as the barrel was brought to bear on them.