“I remember it also, Macumazahn, who was present at the time,” he replied heavily.  “My father feared this Zikali and his father feared him, and I have heard that the Black One himself, who feared nothing, feared him also.  And I, too, fear him, so much that I dare not make up my mind upon a great matter without his counsel, lest he should bewitch me and the nation and bring us to nothing.”

He paused, then turning to Goza, asked, “Did the Opener of Roads tell you where he wished to dwell when he comes to visit me here at Ulundi?”

“O King,” answered Goza, “yonder in the hills, not further away than an aged man can walk in the half of an hour, is a place called the Valley of Bones, because there in the days of those who went before the King, and even in the King’s day, many evildoers have been led to die.  Zikali would dwell in this Valley of Bones, and there and nowhere else would meet the King and the Great Council, not in the daylight but after sunset when the moon has risen.”

“Why,” said Cetewayo, starting, “the place is ill-omened and, they say, haunted, one that no man dares to approach after the fall of darkness for fear lest the ghosts of the dead should leap upon him gibbering.”

“Such were the words of the Opener of Roads, O King,” replied Goza.  “There and nowhere else will he meet the King, and there he demands that three huts should be built to shelter him and his folk and stored with all things needful.  If this be not granted to him, then he refuses to visit the King or to give counsel to the nation.”

“So be it then,” said Cetewayo.  “Send messengers to the Opener of Roads, Goza, saying that what he desires shall be done.  Let my command go out that under pain of death none spy upon him while he journeys hither or returns.  Let the huts be built forthwith, and when it is known that he is coming, let food in plenty be placed in them and afterwards morning by morning taken to the mouth of the valley.  Bid him announce his arrival and the hour he chooses for our meeting by messenger.  Begone.”

Goza leapt up, gave the royal salute, and retreated backwards from the presence of the king, leaving us alone.  I also rose to depart, but Cetewayo motioned to me to be seated.

“Macumazahn,” he said, “the Great Queen’s man who has come to Natal (Sir Bartle Frere) threatens me with war because two evil-doing women were taken on the Natal side of the Tugela and brought back to Zululand and killed by Mehlokazulu, being the wives of his father, Sirayo, which was done without my knowledge.  Also two white men were driven away from an island in the Tugela River by some of my soldiers.”

“Is that all, O King?” I asked.

“No.  The Queen’s man says I kill my people without trial, which is a lie told him by the missionaries, and that girls have been killed also who refused to marry those to whom they were given and ran away with other men.  Also that wizards are smelt out and slain, which happens but rarely now; all of this contrary to the promises I made to Sompseu when he came to recognize me as king upon my father’s death, and some other such small matters.”