But I was minded to know the assegai or the kerrie; nor would I perish more slowly beneath the knives of the tormentors, nor be parched by the pangs of thirst, or wander eyeless to my end.

Therefore it was that, since I had sat in the doom ring looking hour after hour into the face of death, I had borne this medicine with me by night and by day.
Surely now was the time to use it.
So I thought as I sat through the watches of the night, ay! and drew out the bitter drug and laid it on my tongue.

But as I did so I remembered my daughter Nada, who was left to me, though she sojourned in a far country, and my wife Macropha and my sister Baleka, who still lived, so said the soldiers, though how it came about that the king had not killed her I did not know then.

Also another thought was born in my heart.
While life remained to me, I might be revenged upon him who had wrought me this woe; but can the dead strike?
Alas! the dead are strengthless, and if they still have hearts to suffer, they have no hands to give back blow for blow.

Nay, I would live on.