At this point Zikali seemed to wake out of his indifference, or his torpor, for he looked up and said darkly—­

“It is strange that the cleverest are always those who first fall into the trap.  They go along, gazing at the stars at night, and forget the pit which they themselves have dug in the morning.  O-ho-ho!  Oho-ho!”

Now the wrangling broke out afresh.  The peace party pointed triumphantly to the fact that I, the white man who ought to know, put no faith in this apparition, which was therefore without doubt a fraud.  The war party on the other hand declared that I was deceiving them for reasons of my own, one of which would be that I did not wish to see the Zulus eat up my people.  So fierce grew the debate that I thought it would end in blows and perhaps in an attack on myself or Zikali who all the while sat quite careless and unmoved, staring at the moon.  At length Cetewayo shouted for silence, spitting, as was his habit when angry.

“Make an end,” he cried, “lest I cause some of you to grow quiet for ever,” whereon the recriminations ceased.  “Opener of Roads,” he went on, “many of those who are present think like Macumazahn here, that you are but an old cheat, though whether or no I be one of these I will not say.  They demand a sign of you that none can dispute, and I demand it also before I speak the word of peace or war.  Give us then that sign or begone to whence you came and show your face no more at Ulundi.”

“What sign does the Council require, Son of Panda?” asked Zikali quietly.  “Let them agree on one together and tell me now at once, for I who am old grow weary and would sleep.  Then if it can be given I will give it; and if I cannot give it, I will get me back to my own house and show my face no more at Ulundi, who do not desire to listen again to fools who babble like contending waters round a stone and yet never stir the stone because they run two ways at once.”

Now the Councillors stared at each other, for none knew what sign to ask.  At length old Sigananda said—­

“O King, it is well known that the Black One who went before you had a certain little assegai handled with the royal red wood, which drank the blood of many.  It was with this assegai that Mopo his servant, who vanished from the land after the death of Dingaan, let out the life of the Black One at the kraal Duguza, but what became of it afterwards none have heard for certain.  Some say that it was buried with the Black One, some that Mopo stole it.  Others that Dingaan and Umhlagana burned it.  Still a saying rose like a wind in the land that when that spear shall fall from heaven at the feet of the king who reigns in the place of the Black One, then the Zulus shall make their last great war and win a victory of which all the world shall hear.  Now let the Opener of Roads give us this sign of the falling of the Black One’s spear and I shall be content.”

“Would you know the spear if it fell?” asked Cetewayo.