“It is so; he speaks the truth,” said Umgona.

“Cease,” answered Cetywayo angrily.  “Is this a time that my soldiers should seek wives in marriage, wives to turn their hearts to water?  Know that but yesterday for this crime I commanded that twenty girls who had dared without my leave to marry men of the Undi regiment, should be strangled and their bodies laid upon the cross-roads and with them the bodies of their fathers, that all might know their sin and be warned thereby.  Ay, Umgona, it is well for you and for your daughter that you sought my word before she was given in marriage to this man.  Now this is my award:  I refuse your prayer, Nahoon, and since you, Umgona, are troubled with one whom you would not take as son-in-law, the old chief Maputa, I will free you from his importunity.  The girl, says Nahoon, is fair—­good, I myself will be gracious to her, and she shall be numbered among the wives of the royal house.  Within thirty days from now, in the week of the next new moon, let her be delivered to the Sigodhla, the royal house of the women, and with her those cattle, the cows and the calves together, that Nahoon has given you, of which I fine him because he has dared to think of marriage without the leave of the king.”

CHAPTER II

THE BEE PROPHESIES

“‘A Daniel come to judgment’ indeed,” reflected Hadden, who had been watching this savage comedy with interest; “our love-sick friend has got more than he bargained for.  Well, that comes of appealing to Caesar,” and he turned to look at the two suppliants.

The old man, Umgona, merely started, then began to pour out sentences of conventional thanks and praise to the king for his goodness and condescension.  Cetywayo listened to his talk in silence, and when he had done answered by reminding him tersely that if Nanea did not appear at the date named, both she and he, her father, would in due course certainly decorate a cross-road in their own immediate neighbourhood.

The captain, Nahoon, afforded a more curious study.  As the fatal words crossed the king’s lips, his face took an expression of absolute astonishment, which was presently replaced by one of fury—­the just fury of a man who suddenly has suffered an unutterable wrong.  His whole frame quivered, the veins stood out in knots on his neck and forehead, and his fingers closed convulsively as though they were grasping the handle of a spear.  Presently the rage passed away—­for as well might a man be wroth with fate as with a Zulu despot—­to be succeeded by a look of the most hopeless misery.  The proud dark eyes grew dull, the copper-coloured face sank in and turned ashen, the mouth drooped, and down one corner of it there trickled a little line of blood springing from the lip bitten through in the effort to keep silence.  Lifting his hand in salute to the king, the great man rose and staggered rather than walked towards the gate.