After waiting for a little while outside the gate in the surrounding fence, a body-servant ordered us to enter, which we did to find the king seated on the shady side of his big hut quite alone.  At a sign I also sat myself down upon a stool that had been set for me, while Goza, whose nose was still bleeding, squatted at my side.

“Your manners are not so good as they were once, Macumazahn,” said Cetewayo presently, “or perhaps you have been so long away from the royal kraal that you have forgotten its customs.”

I stared at him, wondering what he could mean, whereon he added with a laugh—­

“What is that in your pocket?  Is it not a loaded pistol, and do you not remember that it is death to appear before the king armed?  Now I might kill you and have no blame, although you are my guest, for who knows that you are not sent by the English Queen to shoot me?”

“I ask the King’s pardon,” I said humbly enough.  “I did not think about the pistol.  Let your servants take it away.”

“Perhaps it is safer in your pocket, where I saw you place it in the cattle-kraal, Macumazahn, than in their hands, which do not know how to hold such things.  Moreover, I know that you are not one who stabs in the dark, even when our peoples growl round each other like two dogs about to fight, and if you were, in this place your life would have to pay for mine.  There is beer by your side; drink and fear nothing.  Did you see the Opener of Roads, Goza, and if so, what is his answer to my message?”

“O King, I saw him,” answered Goza.  “The Father of the doctors, the friend and master of the Spirits, says he has heard the King’s word, yes, that he heard it as it passed the King’s lips, and that although he is very old, he will travel to Ulundi and be present at the Great Council of the nation which is to be summoned on the eighth day from this, that of the full moon.  Yet he makes a prayer of the King.  It is that a place may be prepared for him, for his people and for his servants who carry him, away from this town of Ulundi, where he may sojourn quite alone, a decree of death being pronounced against any who attempt to break in upon his privacy, either where he dwells or upon his journey.  These are his very words, O King: 

“’I, who am the most ancient man in Zululand, dwell with the spirits of my fathers, who will not suffer strangers to come nigh them and who, if they are offended, will bring great woes upon the land.  Moreover, I have sworn that while there is a king in Zululand and I draw the breath of life, never again will I set foot in a royal kraal, because when last I did so at the slaying of the witch, Mameena, the king who is dead thought it well to utter threats against me, and never more will I, the Opener of Roads, be threatened by a mortal.  Therefore if the King and his Council seek to drink of the water of my wisdom, it must be in the place and hour of my own choosing.  If this cannot be, let me abide here in my house and let the King seek light from other doctors, since mine shall remain as a lamp to my own heart.’”