You ask, my father, how I came to be married, seeing that Chaka forbade marriage to all his soldiers till they were in middle life and had put the man's ring upon their heads.

It was a boon he granted me as inyanga of medicine, saying it was well that a doctor should know the sicknesses of women and learn how to cure their evil tempers.

As though, my father, that were possible! When the king heard that Baleka was sick he did not kill her outright, because he loved her a little, but he sent for me, commanding me to attend her, and when the child was born to cause its body to be brought to him, according to custom, so that he might be sure that it was dead.
I bent to the earth before him, and went to do his bidding with a heavy heart, for was not Baleka my sister?
and would not her child be of my own blood?
Still, it must be so, for Chaka's whisper was as the shout of other kings, and, if we dared to disobey, then our lives and the lives of all in our kraals would answer for it.

Better that an infant should die than that we should become food for jackals.

Presently I came to the Emposeni, the place of the king's wives, and declared the king's word to the soldiers on guard.