“Messenger, I thank Him and I worship Him, though I know Him not.  Say now, how did His magic work upon me to make me sick to death and to recover me?”

“By the hand of man, King, and by the virtues that lie hid in Nature.  Did you not drink of a cup, and were not many things mixed in the draught?  Was it not but now in your mind to speak words that should bring down the head of pride and evil, and lift up the head of truth and goodness?”

“O White Man, how know you these things?” gasped the king.

“I know them, it is enough.  Say, who was it that stirred the bowl, King, and who gave you to drink?”

Now Umsuka staggered to his feet, and cried aloud in a voice that was thick with rage:—­

“By my head and the heads of my fathers I smell the plot!  My son, the Prince Hafela, has learned my counsel, and would have slain me before I said words that should set him beneath the feet of Nodwengo.  Seize him, captains, and let him be brought before me for judgment!”

Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but Hafela was gone.  Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has rarely run before—­his face set towards that fastness in the mountains where he could find refuge among his mother’s tribesmen and the regiments which he commanded.  Of late they had been sent thither by the king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was disinherited.

“He is fled,” said one; “I saw him go.”

“Pursue him and bring him back, dead or alive!” thundered the king.  “A hundred head of cattle to the man who lays hand upon him before he reaches the impi of the North, for they will fight for him!”

“Stay!” broke in Owen.  “Once before this day I prayed of you, King, to show mercy, and you refused it.  Will you refuse me a second time?  Leave him his life who has lost all else.”

“That he may rebel against me?  Well, White Man, I owe you much, and for this time your wisdom shall be my guide, though my heart speaks against such gentleness.  Hearken, councillors and people, this is my decree:  that Hafela, my son, who would have murdered me, be deposed from his place as heir to my throne, and that Nodwengo, his brother, be set in that place, to rule the People of Fire after me when I die.”

“It is good, it is just!” said the council.  “Let the king’s word be done.”

“Hearken again,” said Umsuka.  “Let this white man, who is named Messenger, be placed in the House of Guests and treated with all honour; let oxen be given him from the royal herds and corn from the granaries, and girls of noble blood for wives if he wills them.  Hokosa, into your hand I deliver him, and, great though you are, know this, that if but a hair of his head is harmed, with your goods and your life you shall answer for it, you and all your house.”

“Let the king’s word be done,” said the councillors again.