Here some ceremony was in progress, for soldiers stood round the kraal while heralds pranced and shouted.  At the head of the place in front of the chief’s big hut was a little group of people, among whom a big, gaunt man sat upon a stool clad in a warrior’s dress with a great and very long axe hafted with wire-lashed rhinoceros horn, laid across his knees.

Our guides led me, with Hans sneaking after me like a dejected and low-bred dog (for the waggon had stopped outside the gate), across the kraal to where the heralds shouted and the big man sat yawning.  At once I noted that he was a very remarkable person, broad and tall and spare of frame, with long, tough-looking arms and a fierce face which reminded me of that of the late King Dingaan.  Also he had a great hole in his head above the temple where the skull had been driven in by some blow, and keen, royal-looking eyes.

He looked up and seeing me, cried out,

“What!  Has a white man come to fight me for the chieftainship of the People of the Axe?  Well, he is a small one.”

“No,” I answered quietly, “but Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, has come to visit you in answer to your request, O Umslopogaas; Macumazahn whose name was known in this land before yours was told of, O Umslopogaas.”

The Chief heard and rising from his seat, lifted the big axe in salute.

“I greet you, O Macumazahn,” he said, “who although you are small in stature, are very great indeed in fame.  Have I not heard how you conquered Bangu, although Saduko slew him, and of how you gave up the six hundred head of cattle to Tshoza and the men of the Amangwane who fought with you, the cattle that were your own?  Have I not heard how you led the Tulwana against the Usutu and stamped flat three of Cetywayo’s regiments in the days of Panda, although, alas! because of an oath of mine I lifted no steel in that battle, I who will have nothing to do with those that spring from the blood of Senzangacona—­perhaps because I smell too strongly of it, Macumazahn.  Oh! yes, I have heard these and many other things concerning you, though until now it has never been my fortune to look upon your face, O Watcher-by-Night, and therefore I greet you well, Bold one, Cunning one, Upright one, Friend of us Black People.”

“Thank you,” I answered, “but you said something about fighting.  If there is to be anything of the sort, let us get it over.  If you want to fight, I am quite ready,” and I tapped the rifle which I carried.

The grim Chief broke into a laugh and said,

“Listen.  By an ancient law any man on this day in each year may fight me for this Chieftainship, as I fought and conquered him who held it before me, and take it from me with my life and the axe, though of late none seems to like the business.  But that law was made before there were guns, or men like Macumazahn who, it is said, can hit a lizard on a wall at fifty paces.  Therefore I tell you that if you wish to fight me with a rifle, O Macumazahn, I give in and you may have the chieftainship,” and he laughed again in his fierce fashion.