“Then come now, Macumazahn, and give me that farewell kiss.  The King will permit it, and since I have now no husband, who take Death to husband, there is none to say you nay.”

I rose.  It seemed to me that I could not help myself.  I went to her, this woman surrounded by implacable enemies, this woman who had played for great stakes and lost them, and who knew so well how to lose.  I stood before her, ashamed and yet not ashamed, for something of her greatness, evil though it might be, drove out my shame, and I knew that my foolishness was lost in a vast tragedy.

Slowly she lifted her languid arm and threw it about my neck; slowly she bent her red lips to mine and kissed me, once upon the mouth and once upon the forehead.  But between those two kisses she did a thing so swiftly that my eyes could scarcely follow what she did.  It seemed to me that she brushed her left hand across her lips, and that I saw her throat rise as though she swallowed something.  Then she thrust me from her, saying: 

“Farewell, O Macumazana, you will never forget this kiss of mine; and when we meet again we shall have much to talk of, for between now and then your story will be long.  Farewell, Zikali.  I pray that all your plannings may succeed, since those you hate are those I hate, and I bear you no grudge because you told the truth at last.  Farewell, Prince Cetewayo.  You will never be the man your brother would have been, and your lot is very evil, you who are doomed to pull down a House built by One who was great.  Farewell, Saduko the fool, who threw away your fortune for a woman’s eyes, as though the world were not full of women.  Nandie the Sweet and the Forgiving will nurse you well until your haunted end.  Oh! why does Umbelazi lean over your shoulder, Saduko, and look at me so strangely?  Farewell, Panda the Shadow.  Now let loose your slayers.  Oh! let them loose swiftly, lest they should be balked of my blood!”

Panda lifted his hand and the executioners leapt forward, but ere ever they reached her, Mameena shivered, threw wide her arms and fell back—­dead.  The poisonous drug she had taken worked well and swiftly.

Such was the end of Mameena, Child of Storm.

A deep silence followed, a silence of awe and wonderment, till suddenly it was broken by a sound of dreadful laughter.  It came from the lips of Zikali the Ancient, Zikali, the “Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born.”

CHAPTER XVI

MAMEENA—­MAMEENA—­MAMEENA!

That evening at sunset, just as I was about to trek, for the King had given me leave to go, and at that time my greatest desire in life seemed to be to bid good-bye to Zululand and the Zulus—­I saw a strange, beetle-like shape hobbling up the hill towards me, supported by two big men.  It was Zikali.

He passed me without a word, merely making a motion that I was to follow him, which I did out of curiosity, I suppose, for Heaven knows I had seen enough of the old wizard to last me for a lifetime.  He reached a flat stone about a hundred yards above my camp, where there was no bush in which anyone could hide, and sat himself down, pointing to another stone in front of him, on which I sat myself down.  Then the two men retired out of earshot, and, indeed, of sight, leaving us quite alone.