"It is long since there has been a war in the land, and some of these young soldiers who have never used an assegai save to skin an ox or cut the head from a chicken, shout too loud and leap too high.

Now they will be quieter, and while you stay here you may walk where you will in safety, Macumazahn," he added thoughtfully.
Then dismissing the matter from his mind, as we white people dismiss any trivial incident in a morning stroll, he talked for a few minutes to the commanding officer of the regiment that was drilling, who ran up to make some report to him, and walked back towards the isigodhlo, beckoning me to follow with Goza.
After waiting for a little while outside the gate in the surrounding fence, a body-servant ordered us to enter, which we did to find the king seated on the shady side of his big hut quite alone.

At a sign I also sat myself down upon a stool that had been set for me, while Goza, whose nose was still bleeding, squatted at my side.
"Your manners are not so good as they were once, Macumazahn," said Cetewayo presently, "or perhaps you have been so long away from the royal kraal that you have forgotten its customs." I stared at him, wondering what he could mean, whereon he added with a laugh-- "What is that in your pocket?
Is it not a loaded pistol, and do you not remember that it is death to appear before the king armed?
Now I might kill you and have no blame, although you are my guest, for who knows that you are not sent by the English Queen to shoot me ?" "I ask the King's pardon," I said humbly enough.

"I did not think about the pistol.

Let your servants take it away." "Perhaps it is safer in your pocket, where I saw you place it in the cattle-kraal, Macumazahn, than in their hands, which do not know how to hold such things.