“Now I understand, White Man, and am glad to learn that you are not cruel, as I thought.  My children,” he added, turning to the others, “let us trouble this Inkoos no more.  He only does what he must do to save the lives of his brethren by his skill, if he can.  If we continue to plead with him and stir his heart to pity, the sorrow swelling in it may cause his hand to shake, and then they will die also, and their blood be on his head and ours.  My children, it is the king’s will that we should be slain.  Let us make ready to obey the king, as men of our House have always done.  White lord, we thank you for your good words.  May you live long, and may good fortune sleep in your hut to the end.  May you shoot straight, also, with your magic tool, and thereby win the lives of your company out of the hand of the king.  Farewell, Inkoos,” and since he could not lift his bound hands in salutation, he bowed to me, as did the others.

Then they walked to a little distance, and, seating themselves on the ground, began to talk together, and after a while to drone some strange chant in unison.  The executioners and the guards also sat down not far away, laughing, chatting, and passing a horn of snuff from hand to hand.  Indeed, I observed that the captain of them even took some snuff to the victims, and held it in his palm beneath their noses while they drew it up their nostrils and politely thanked him between the sneezes.

As for myself, I lit a pipe and smoked it, for I seemed to require a stimulant, or, rather, a sedative.  Before it was finished Hans, who was engaged in doctoring his scratches made by the vultures’ beaks with a concoction of leaves which he had been chewing, exclaimed suddenly in his matter-of-fact voice: 

“See, baas, here they come, the white people on one side and the black on the other, just like the goats and the sheep at Judgment Day in the Book.”

I looked, and there to my right appeared the party of Boers, headed by the Vrouw Prinsloo, who held the remnants of an old umbrella over her head.  To the left advanced a number of Zulu nobles and councillors, in front of whom waddled Dingaan arrayed in his bead dancing dress.  He was supported by two stalwart body-servants, whilst a third held a shield over his head to protect him from the sun, and a fourth carried a large stool, upon which he was to sit.  Behind each party, also, I perceived a number of Zulus in their war-dress, all of them armed with broad stabbing spears.

The two parties arrived at the stone upon which I was sitting almost simultaneously, as probably it had been arranged that they should do, and halted, staring at each other.  As for me, I sat still upon my stone and smoked on.

“Allemachte!  Allan,” puffed the Vrouw Prinsloo, who was breathless with her walk up the hill, “so here you are!  As you did not come back, I thought you had run away and left us, like that stinkcat Pereira.”