In vain did I pray them to forbear.

Love pulled at their heart-strings more heavily than my words, and still they came.

This was the end of it--that Chaka saw the child sitting on the knee of Unandi, his mother.
"What does my mother with that brat of thine, Mopo ?" he asked of me.
"Cannot she kiss me, if she will find a child to kiss ?" And he laughed like a wolf.
I said that I did not know, and the matter passed over for awhile.
But after that Chaka caused his mother to be watched.

Now the boy Umslopogaas grew great and strong; there was no such lad of his years for a day's journey round.

But from a babe he was somewhat surly, of few words, and like his father, Chaka, afraid of nothing.