“I am not afraid,” I answered.  “What is the use of being afraid in a place like this?”

“Ask that Kaffir if the king gives you safe conduct,” said Retief.

I did so, and Kambula answered: 

“Yes, for this visit.  Who am I that I can speak the king’s unspoken words?” [which meant, guarantee his will in the future.]

“A dark saying,” commented Retief.  “But go, Allan, since you must, and God bring you back safe again.  It is clear that Dingaan did not ask that you should come with me for nothing.  Now I wish I had left you at home with that pretty wife of yours.”

So we parted, I going to the king’s private enclosure on foot and without my rifle, since I was not allowed to appear before him armed, and the commandant towards the gate of the kraal accompanied by Hans, who led my horse.  Ten minutes later I stood before Dingaan, who greeted me kindly enough, and began to ask a number of questions about the Boers, especially if they were not people who had rebelled against their own king and run away from him.

I answered, Yes, they had run away, as they wanted more room to live; but I had told him all about that when I saw him before.  He said he knew I had, but he wished to hear “whether the same words came out of the same mouth, or different words,” so that he might know if I were a true man or not.  Then, after pausing a while, he looked at me in his piercing fashion and asked: 

“Have you brought me a present of that tall white girl with eyes like two stars, Macumazahn?  I mean the girl whom you refused to me, and whom I could not take because you had won your bet, which gave all the white people to you; she for whose sake you make brothers of these Boers, who are traitors to their king?”

“No, O Dingaan,” I answered; “there are no women among us.  Moreover, this maid is now my wife.”

“Your wife!” he exclaimed angrily.  “By the Head of the Black One, have you dared to make a wife of her whom I desired?  Now say, boy, you clever Watcher by Night; you little white ant, who work in the dark and only peep out at the end of your tunnel when it is finished; you wizard, who by your magic can snatch his prey out of the hand of the greatest king in all the world—­for it was magic that killed those vultures on Hloma Amabutu, not your bullets, Macumazahn—­say, why should I not make an end of you at once for this trick?”

I folded my arms and looked at him.  A strange contrast we must have made, this huge, black tyrant with the royal air, for to do him justice he had that, at whose nod hundreds went the way of death, and I, a mere insignificant white boy, for in appearance, at any rate, I was nothing more.

“O Dingaan,” I said coolly, knowing that coolness was my only chance, “I answer you in the words of the Commandant Retief, the great chief.  Do you take me for a child that I should give up my own wife to you who already have so many?  Moreover, you cannot kill me because I have the word of your captain, Kambula, that I am safe with you.”