He sank down
upon the tanned ox-hide, and lay there dying. Once more he spoke, and
once only, saying: "Would now that I had hearkened to the voice of
Nobela, who warned me against thee, thou dog!"
Then he was silent for ever. But I knelt over him and called in his
ear the names of all those of my blood who had died at his hands--the
names of Makedama, my father, of my mother, of Anadi my wife, of Moosa
my son, and all my other wives and children, and of Baleka my sister.
His eyes and ears were open, and I think, my father, that he saw and
understood; I think also that the hate upon my face as I shook my
withered hand before him was more fearful to him that the pain of
death. At the least, he turned his head aside, shut his eyes, and
groaned. Presently they opened again, and he was dead.
Thus then, my father, did Chaka the King, the greatest man who has
ever lived in Zululand, and the most evil, pass by my hand to those
kraals of the Inkosazana where no sleep is. In blood he died as he had
lived in blood, for the climber at last falls with the tree, and in
the end the swimmer is borne away by the stream. Now he trod that path
which had been beaten flat for him by the feet of people whom he had
slaughtered, many as the blades of grass upon a mountain-side; but it
is a lie to say, as some do, that he died a coward, praying for mercy.
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