“Yes, Macumazahn,” replied Dingaan quite genially.  “That is where you and I are alike.  We are both honest, quite honest, and therefore friends, which I can never be with these Amaboona, who, as you and others have told me, are traitors.  We play our game in the light, like men, and who wins, wins, and who loses, loses.  Now hear me, Macumazahn, and remember what I say.  Whatever happens to others, whatever you may see, you are safe while I live.  Dingaan has spoken.  Whether I get the tall white girl, or do not get her, still you are safe; it is on my head,” and he touched the gum-ring in his hair.

“And why should I be safe if others are unsafe, O king?” I asked.

“Oh! if you would know that, ask a certain ancient prophet named Zikali, who was in this land in the days of Senzangacona, my father, and before then—­that is, if you can find him.  Also, I like you, who are not a flat-faced fool like these Amaboona, but have a brain that turns in and out through difficulties, as a snake does through reeds; and it would be a pity to kill one who can shoot birds wheeling high above him in the air, which no one else can do.  So whatever you see and whatever you hear, remember that you are safe, and shall go safely from this land, or stay safely in it if you will, to be my voice to speak with the Sons of George.

“Now return to the commandant, and say to him that my heart is his heart, and that I am very pleased to see him here.  To-morrow, and perhaps the next day, I will show him some of the dances of my people, and after that I will sign the writing, giving him all the land he asks and everything else he may desire, more than he can wish, indeed.  Hamba gachle, Macumazahn,” and, rising with surprising quickness from his chair, which was cut out of a single block of wood, he turned and vanished through the little opening in the reed fence behind him that led to his private huts.

As I was being conducted back to the Boer camp by Kambula, who was waiting for me outside the gate of the labyrinth which is called isiklohlo, I met Thomas Halstead, who was lounging about, I think in order to speak with me.  Halting, I asked him straight out what the king’s intentions were towards the Boers.

“Don’t know,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “but he seems so sweet on them that I think he must be up to mischief.  He is wonderfully fond of you, too, for I heard him give orders that the word was to be passed through all the regiments that if anyone so much as hurt you, he should be killed at once.  Also, you were pointed out to the soldiers when you rode in with the rest, that they might all of them know you.”

“That’s good for me as far as it goes,” I replied.  “But I don’t know why I should need special protection above others, unless there is someone who wants to harm me.”

“There is that, Allan Quatermain.  The indunas tell me that the good-looking Portugee, whom they call ‘Two-faces,’ asks the king to kill you every time he sees him.  Indeed, I’ve heard him myself.”