fire in its centre, and gave me Kafir beer to drink, that I swallowed
gratefully, for my throat was dry and still felt as though it had been
scraped.

"Who are you, Father?" I asked point-blank when I had taken my seat upon
a low stool, with my back resting against the wall of the hut, and lit
my pipe.

He lifted his big head from the pile of karosses on which he was lying
and peered at me across the fire.

"My name is Zikali, which means 'Weapons,' White Man. You know as much
as that, don't you?" he answered. "My father 'went down' so long ago
that his does not matter. I am a dwarf, very ugly, with some learning,
as we of the Black House understand it, and very old. Is there anything
else you would like to learn?"

"Yes, Zikali; how old?"

"There, there, Macumazahn, as you know, we poor Kafirs cannot count very
well. How old? Well, when I was young I came down towards the coast
from the Great River, you call it the Zambesi, I think, with Undwandwe,
who lived in the north in those days. They have forgotten it now
because it is some time ago, and if I could write I would set down the
history of that march, for we fought some great battles with the people
who used to live in this country. Afterwards I was the friend of the
Father of the Zulus, he whom they still call Inkoosi Umkulu--the mighty
chief--you may have heard tell of him. I carved that stool on which you
sit for him and he left it back to me when he died."