“Those are the words of Lobengula,” he concluded, and taking the horn snuff-box from the slit in his ear, helped himself, then insolently passed it to the Molimo.

So great was the old chief’s rage that, forgetting his self-control, he struck the box from the hand of his tormentor to the ground, where the snuff lay spilled.

“Just so shall the blood of your people be spilled through your rash foolishness,” said the messenger calmly, as he picked up the box, and as much of the snuff as he could save.

“Hearken,” said the Molimo, in a thin, trembling voice.  “Your king demands cattle, knowing that all the cattle are gone, that scarce a cow is left to give drink to a motherless babe.  He asks for maidens also, but if he took those he seeks we should have none left for our young men to marry.  And why is this so?  It is because the vulture, Lobengula, has picked us to the bone; yes, while we are yet alive he has torn the flesh from us.  Year by year his soldiers have stolen and killed, till at last nothing is left of us.  And now he seeks what we have not got to give, in order that he may force a quarrel upon us and murder us.  There is nought left for us to give Lobengula.  You have your answer.”

“Indeed!” replied the envoy with a sneer.  “How comes it, then, that yonder I see a waggon laden with goods, and oxen in the yokes?  Yes,” he repeated with meaning, “with goods whereof we have known the like at Buluwayo; for Lobengula also sometimes buys guns from white men, O! little Makalanga.  Come now, give us the waggon with its load and the oxen and the horses, and though it be but a small gift, we will take it away and ask nothing more this year.”

“How can I give you the property of my guests, the white men?” asked the Molimo.  “Get you gone, and do your worst, or you shall be thrown from the walls of the fortress.”

“Good, but know that very soon we shall return and make an end of you, who are tired of these long and troublesome journeys to gather so little.  Go, tend your corn, dwellers in Bambatse, for this I swear in the name of Lobengula, never shall you see it ripen more.”

Now the crowd of listening Makalanga trembled at his words, but in the old Molimo they seemed only to rouse a storm of prophetic fury.  For a moment he stood staring up at the blue sky, his arms outstretched as though in prayer.  Then he spoke in a new voice—­a clear, quiet voice, that did not seem to be his own.

“Who am I?” he said.  “I am the Molimo of the Bambatse Makalanga; I am the ladder between them and Heaven; I sit on the topmost bough of the tree under which they shelter, and there in the crest of the tree Munwali speaks with me.  What to you are winds, to me are voices whispering in my spirit’s ears.  Once my forefathers were great kings, they were Mambos of all the land, and that is still my name and dignity.  We lived in peace; we laboured, we did wrong to no man.  Then you Zulu savages came upon us from the south-east