Remember that he bade you listen to my counsel while I remain with you, seeing that I do not speak of my own wisdom.  Therefore let me go, and if it should chance that I am taken, trouble not about the matter, for thus it will be fated to some great end.  Above all, though often enough I have been a traitor in the past, do not dream that I betray you, keeping in mind that so to do would be to betray my own soul, which very soon must render its account on high.”

“As you will, Hokosa,” answered the king.  “And now tell those rebel dogs that on these terms only will I make peace with them—­that they withdraw across the mountains by the path which their women and children have taken, leaving this land for ever without lifting another spear against us.  If they will do this, notwithstanding all the wickedness and slaughter that they have worked, I will send command to my impi to let them go unharmed.  If they will not do this, I put my trust in the God I worship and will fight this fray out to the end, knowing that if I and my people perish, they shall perish also.”

Now Nodwengo himself spoke to the herald who was waiting beyond the wall.

“Go back to him you serve,” he said, “and say that Hokosa will meet her who was his wife upon the flat stone and talk with her in the sight of both armies, bearing my word with him.  At the sound of the blowing of a horn shall each of them advance unarmed and alone from either camp.  Say to my brother also that it will indeed be ill for him if he attempts treachery upon Hokosa, for the man who causes his blood to flow will surely die, and after death shall be accursed for ever.”

The herald went, and presently a horn was blown.

“Now it comes into my mind that we part for the last time,” said Nodwengo in a troubled voice as he took the hand of Hokosa.

“It may be so, King; in my heart I think that it is so; yet I do not altogether grieve thereat, for the burden of my past sins crushes me, and I am weary and seek for rest.  Yet we do not part for the last time, because whatever chances, in the end I shall make my report to you yonder”—­and he pointed upwards.  “Reign on for long years, King—­reign well and wisely, clinging to the Faith, for thus at the last shall you reap your reward.  Farewell!”

Now again the horn blew, and in the bright moonlight the slight figure of Noma could be seen advancing towards the stone.

Then Hokosa sprang from the wall and advanced also, till at the same moment they climbed upon the stone.

“Greeting, Hokosa,” said Noma, and she stretched out her hand to him.

By way of answer he placed his own behind his back, saying:  “To your business, woman.”  Yet his eyes searched her face—­the face which in his folly he still loved; and thus it came about that he never saw sundry of the dead bodies, which lay in the shadow of the stone, begin to quicken into life, and inch by inch to arise, first to their knees and next to their feet.  He never saw or heard them, yet, as the words left his lips, they sprang upon him from every side, holding him so that he could not move.