"You have been long in knowing me, who knew you from the first." Then Umslopogaas cried aloud, but yet softly, and letting fall the axe Groan-Maker, he flung himself upon my breast and wept there.

And I wept also.
"Oh! my father," he said, "I thought that you were dead with the others, and now you have come back to me, and I, I would have lifted the axe against you in my folly.

Oh, it is well that I have lived, and not died, since once more I look upon your face--the face that I thought dead, but which yet lives, though it be sorely changed, as though by grief and years." "Peace, Umslopogaas, my son," I said.

"I also deemed you dead in the lion's mouth, though in truth it seemed strange to me that any other man than Umslopogaas could have wrought the deeds which I have heard of as done by Bulalio, Chief of the People of the Axe--ay, and thrown defiance in the teeth of Chaka.

But you are not dead, and I, I am not dead.