“Very good, Macumazahn.  Now we will see if you are a wizard or a liar.  I will make a bet with you.  Yonder by your camp is a hill called ’Hloma Amabutu,’ a hill of stones where evildoers are slain.  This afternoon some wicked ones die there, and when they are dead the vultures will come to devour them.  Now this is my bet with you.  When those vultures come you shall shoot at them, and if you kill three out of the first five on the wing—­not on the ground, Macumazahn—­then I will spare these Boers.  But if you miss them, then I shall know that you are a liar and no wizard, and I will kill them every one on the hill Hloma Amabutu.  I will spare none of them except the girl, whom perhaps I will take as a wife.  As to you, I will not yet say what I will do with you.”

Now my first impulse was to refuse this monstrous wager, which meant that the lives of a number of people were to be set against my skill in shooting.  But young Thomas Halstead, guessing the words that were about to break from me, said in English: 

“Accept unless you are a fool.  If you don’t he will cut the throats of every one of them and stick your girl into the emposeni” (that is harem), “while you will become a prisoner as I am.”

These were words that I could not resent or neglect, so although despair was in my heart, I said coolly: 

“Be it so, O king.  I take your wager.  If I kill three vultures out of five as they hover over the hill, then I have your promise that all those who travel with me shall be allowed to go hence in safety.”

“Yes, yes, Macumazahn; but if you fail to kill them, remember that the next vultures you shoot at shall be those that come to feed upon their flesh, for then I shall know that you are no magician, but a common liar.  And now begone, Tho-maas.  I will not have you spying on me; and you, Macumazahn, come hither.  Although you talk my tongue so badly, I would speak with you about the Boers.”

So Halstead went, shrugging his shoulders and muttering as he passed me: 

“I hope you really can shoot.”

After he had left I sat alone for a full hour with Dingaan while he cross-examined me about the Dutch, their movements and their aims in travelling to the confines of his country.

I answered his questions as best I could, trying to make out a good case for them.

At length, when he grew weary of talking, he clapped his hands, whereon a number of fine girls appeared, two of whom carried pots of beer, from which he offered me drink.

I replied that I would have none, since beer made the hand shake and that on the steadiness of my hand that afternoon depended the lives of many.  To do him justice he quite understood the point.  Indeed, he ordered me to be conducted back to the camp at once that I might rest, and even sent one of his own attendants with me to hold a shield over my head as I walked so that I should be protected from the sun.