If I am seen without the club, then may any man take my life who can, for the club is my Watcher, not I Watcher of the club." "Never wast thou nearer to the losing of both club and life," said Dingaan, angrily.
"It may be so, O King," answered the Wolf.

"When the hour is, then, without a doubt, the Watcher shall cease from his watching." "Ye are a strange pair," quoth Dingaan.

"Where have you been now, and what is your business at the Place of the Elephant ?" "We have been in a far country, O King!" answered Umslopogaas.

"We have wandered in a distant land to search for a Flower to be a gift to a king, and in our searching we have trampled down a Swazi garden, and yonder are some of those who tended it"-- and he pointed to the captives--"and without are the cattle that ploughed it." "Good, Slaughterer! I see the gardeners, and I hear the lowing of the cattle, but what of the Flower?
Where is this Flower ye went so far to dig in Swazi soil?
Was it a Lily-bloom, perchance ?" "It was a Lily-bloom, O King! and yet, alas! the Lily has withered.
Nothing is left but the stalk, white and withered as are the bones of men." "What meanest thou ?" said Dingaan, starting to his feet.
"That the king shall learn," answered Umslopogaas; and, turning, he spoke a word to the captains who were behind him.

Presently the ranks opened up, and four men ran forward from the rear of the companies.
On their shoulders they bore a stretcher, and upon the stretcher lay something wrapped about with raw ox-hides, and bound round with rimpis.
The men saluted, and laid their burden down before the king.
"Open!" said the Slaughterer; and they opened, and there within the hides, packed in salt, lay the body of a girl who once was tall and fair.
"Here lies the Lily's stalk, O King!" said Umslopogaas, pointing with the axe, "but if her flower blooms on any air, it is not here." Now Dingaan stared at the sight of death, and bitterness of heart took hold of him, since he desired above all things to win the beauty of the Lily for himself.
"Bear away this carrion and cast it to the dogs!" he cried, for thus he could speak of her whom he would have taken to wife, when once he deemed her dead.