It is not our custom, my lord, to suffer twins to live; the weaker must always die.

But the mother of the king hid away the feebler child, which was born the last, for her heart yearned over it, and that child is Twala the king.

I am his younger brother, born of another wife." "Well ?" "My lord, Kafa, our father, died when we came to manhood, and my brother Imotu was made king in his place, and for a space reigned and had a son by his favourite wife.

When the babe was three years old, just after the great war, during which no man could sow or reap, a famine came upon the land, and the people murmured because of the famine, and looked round like a starved lion for something to rend.
Then it was that Gagool, the wise and terrible woman, who does not die, made a proclamation to the people, saying, 'The king Imotu is no king.' And at the time Imotu was sick with a wound, and lay in his kraal not able to move.
"Then Gagool went into a hut and led out Twala, my half-brother, and twin brother to the king, whom she had hidden among the caves and rocks since he was born, and stripping the '_moocha_' (waist-cloth) off his loins, showed the people of the Kukuanas the mark of the sacred snake coiled round his middle, wherewith the eldest son of the king is marked at birth, and cried out loud, 'Behold your king whom I have saved for you even to this day!' "Now the people being mad with hunger, and altogether bereft of reason and the knowledge of truth, cried out--'_The king! The king!_' but I knew that it was not so, for Imotu my brother was the elder of the twins, and our lawful king.

Then just as the tumult was at its height Imotu the king, though he was very sick, crawled from his hut holding his wife by the hand, and followed by his little son Ignosi--that is, by interpretation, the Lightning.
"'What is this noise ?' he asked.