Therefore by the spirit of that woman, which still can draw you like a rope, I charge you, tell me--what does this old wizard mean, and why should I not kill him and be rid of one who haunts my heart like an evil vision of the night and, as I sometimes think, is an umtakati, an evil-doer, who would work ill to me and all my House, yes, and to all my people ?" "How should I know what he means, O King ?" I answered with indignation, though in fact I could guess well enough.

"As for killing him, cannot the King kill whom he will?
Yet I remember that once I heard you father ask much the same question and of Zikali himself, saying that he was minded to find out whether or no he were mortal like other men.

I remember also Zikali answered that there was a saying that when the Opener of Roads came to the end of his road, there would be no more a king of Zululand, as there was none when first he set foot upon his road.
Now I have spoken, who am a white man and do not understand your sayings." "I remember it also, Macumazahn, who was present at the time," he replied heavily.

"My father feared this Zikali and his father feared him, and I have heard that the Black One himself, who feared nothing, feared him also.

And I, too, fear him, so much that I dare not make up my mind upon a great matter without his counsel, lest he should bewitch me and the nation and bring us to nothing." He paused, then turning to Goza, asked, "Did the Opener of Roads tell you where he wished to dwell when he comes to visit me here at Ulundi ?" "O King," answered Goza, "yonder in the hills, not further away than an aged man can walk in the half of an hour, is a place called the Valley of Bones, because there in the days of those who went before the King, and even in the King's day, many evildoers have been led to die.