“Ah!” she answered, “you forgot that they had Hokosa on their side.  Did you then think to catch him sleeping?  This retreat was Hokosa’s counsel.  I learned it from the lips of that wounded captain before they killed him.  Now, it seems that there are but two paths to follow, and you can choose between them.  The one is to send a regiment a day and a half’s journey across the cliff top to guard the further mouth of the valley and to wait till these jackals starve in their hole, for certainly they can never come out.”

“It has started six hours since,” said Hafela, “and though the precipices are steep, having the moon to travel by, it should reach the river mouth of the valley before dawn to-morrow, cutting Nodwengo off from the plains, if indeed he should dare to venture out upon them, which, with so small a force, he will not do.  Yet this first plan of yours must fail, Noma, seeing that before they starve within, the generals of Nodwengo will be back upon us from the mountains, catching us between the hammer and the anvil, and I know not how that fight would go.”

“Yet, soon or late, it must be fought.”

“Nay,” he answered, “for my hope is that should the impi return to find Nodwengo dead, they will surrender and acknowledge me as king, who am the first of the blood royal.  But what is your second plan?”

By way of answer, she pointed to the cliff above them.  On the right-hand side, facing the archway, was a flat ledge overhanging the valley, at a height of about a hundred feet.

“If you can come yonder,” she said, “it will be easy to storm this gate, for there lie rocks in plenty, and men cannot fight when stones are dropping on their heads.”

“But how can we come to that home of vultures, where never man has set a foot?  Look, the cliff above is sheer; no rock-rabbit could stand upon it.”

With her eye Noma measured the distance from the brink of the precipice to the broad ledge commanding the valley.

“Sixty paces, not more,” she said.  “Well, yonder are oxen in plenty, and out of their hides ropes can be made, and out of ropes a ladder, down which men may pass; ten, or even five, would be enough.”

“Well thought of Noma,” said Hafela.  “Hokosa told us last night that to him had passed the wisdom of the Messenger; but if this be so, I think that to you has passed the guile of Hokosa.”

“It seems to me that some of it abides with him,” answered Noma laughing.

Then the prince gave orders, and, with many workers of hides toiling at it, within two hours the ladder was ready, its staves, set twenty inches apart, being formed of knob-kerries, or the broken shafts of stabbing spears.  Now they lowered it from the top of the precipice so that its end rested upon the ledge, and down it came several men, who swung upon its giddy length like spiders on a web.  Reaching this great shelf in safety and advancing to the edge of it, these men started a boulder, which, although as it chanced it hurt no one, fell in the midst of a group of the defenders and bounded away through them.