“We, the indunas, wished her to marry, but for her own reasons she would not marry; also we wished to swear allegiance to Chaka, but she was against it, saying that as well might a lamb swear allegiance to a wolf as the Umpondwana to the Zulus.  The end of it was that in a temper she took a bowl of water, and before us all washed her hands of us, and that same night she vanished away we know not where, though rumours have reached us that she went south.  From the day of her departure, however, things have gone ill with us; the Zulus with whom we made peace threaten us continually; her half-brother, Koraanu, the slave-born, was not a good chief, and now he is dead of the sickness.  So our heart is heavy and our head is in the dust, and when we saw your impi we thought that Dingaan, who now rules over the Zulus, had sent it to eat us up and to take the cattle that still remain to us.

“But you say that you come in peace, so tell us, chief, what it is you desire, and I trust that it may be little, for here we have nothing to give, unless,” he added with meaning, “it be the small-pox, although we are ready to fight to the death for what is left to us, our liberty and our cattle; and, chief, even a larger army than yours might fail to take that stronghold which has but one gate.”

When the councillor had finished speaking, Sigwe called aloud: 

“Lady Sihamba, I pray you come hither, and with you the lady Swallow, your companion.”

Then Sihamba, who was prepared for this event, for her hair was freshly dressed and powdered with blue mica, wearing her little cape of fur and the necklace of large blue beads, stepped from the screen of bush behind which she had hidden.  With her, and holding her hand, came Suzanne, who covered the raggedness of her clothes beneath a splendid kaross of leopards’ skins that Sigwe had given her, down which her dark hair flowed almost to her knee.  A strange pair they made, the tall Suzanne in the first bloom of her white beauty which had suffered nothing in their journeying, and the small, quick-eyed, delicate-featured Kaffir woman.

“Who are these?” asked Sigwe of the council.

The old man looked at them and answered: 

“Of the white lady we can say nothing except that she is very beautiful; but, unless our eyes deceive us, she whom she holds by the hand is Sihamba Ngenyanga, who was our chieftainess, and who left us because she was angry.”

“She is Sihamba and no one else,” said Sigwe.  “Sihamba come back to rule you in the hour of need, and with her own tongue she shall tell you her story and the story of the White Swallow who holds her by the hand.”

So Sihamba began, and for an hour or more she spoke to them, for when she chose this little woman had the gift of words, telling them all about herself, and telling them also the story of the Swallow, and of how she had brought good luck to the army of Sigwe, and how she was destined to bring good luck wherever she made her home.  At the end of her speech she said: