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Show MAGE PA THE BUCK PRINCESS MARY'S GIFT BOOK 66 huts and a cattle enclosure surrounded by the usual Fence. The situation, however, was very pretty. a knoll of rising ground backed by the wooded slopes of the kloot'. As I approached I .saw women and children running to the kraal to hide. and when I reached the gateway for some time no one would come out to meet me. At length a small boy appeared who informed me that the kraal was " empty as a gourd." "Quite so." I answered; "still, go and tell the lieadinan that Maeuniazalin wishes to speak with him." The boy departed, and presently I saw a face that seemed familiar to me peeping round the gateway. After a careful inspection its owner emerged, He was a tall. thin man of indefinite age. perhaps between sixty and seventy. with a fittt‘l}'»(‘.tlt face, a little grey heard. kind eyes and very well shaped hands and feet, the fingers. which twitched incessantly, being remarkably long. " Greeting. )Iaeuiiiazahn," he said. " I see you do not remember me. \\'cll, think of the battle of the Tugela, and of the last stand of the Amawombe, and ot a certain talk at the kraal of our Father-whois-dcad " (that is, King I'anda), " and of how he who sits in his place '7 (he meant (‘ctc-w'ayo) " told you that it' he had his way he would find a hide rope to fit the neck of a certain one." i " Ah I" I said, " I know you now; you are Magepa the Buck. So the Runner has not yet been run down." " No. )Iacumaxahn. not yet; but there is still time. I think that many swil't feet will be at work ere long." " How have you prospered L' i' I asked him. " \\'ell enough, Macumaxahn, in all ways except one. I have three wi\es. but my children ha\e been few and are dead, except one daughter. who is married and lives with me, for her husband. too. is dead. He was killed by a buii'alo, and she has not yet married again. But enter and see." L So I went in and saw Magepa's wives, old women all of them. Also, at his bidding. his daughter, whose name was Gila, brought me some mans. or curdled milk. to drink. She vas a well-formed woman, very like her father, but sad-laced, perhaps with a prescience of evil to come. Cling-mg to her tinger was a heautil'ul boy of something under two years of age, who, when he saw Magcpa, ran to him and threw his little arms about his legs. The old man lil'tcd the child and kissed him tenderly. saying: " It is well that this toddler and I should love one another, Macumaxahn, seeing that he is the last of my race. All the other 67 children here are those ol‘ the people who have come to live in my shadow." " \Vhere are their fathers?" I asked. patting the little boy (who, his mother told me, was named Sinala) upon the cheek, an attention that he resented. "' They have been called away on duty," answered Magepa shortly ; and I changed the subject. Then we began to talk about old times, and I asked him if he had any oxen to sell, saying that this was my reason for visiting his kraal. " Nay, Maeumazahn," he answered, in a meaning voice. " This year itHlltI all the *attle are the king's." I nodded and replied that, as it was so, I had better be going; whereon, as I halt' expected, Magepa announced that he would see me safe to the drift. So I bade farewell to the wives and the widowed daughter, and we started. As soon as we were clear of the kraal )Iagepa began to open his heart to me. I was "Macmmizahn," he said, looking up at me earnestly, for mounted and he walked beside my horse, "there is to be war. Cetewayo will not consent to the demands of the great \Vhite Cliict' the from the Cape "-he meant Sir Bartle Frere. " He will fight with them draw will He fighting. the begin them let will he only ; English on into Zululand and then overwhelm them with his [11211119 and stamp am very them flat. and eat them up; and I, who love the English, now, sorry. Yes, it makes my heart bleed. If it were the Boers we do I should be glad, for we Zulus hate the Boers : but the English up 1t not hate; even Cetewayo likes them; still he will eat them they attack him." I proceeded to " Indeed," I answered; and then, as in duty bound, get what I could out of him, and that was not a little. Of course, that Magepa was however, I did not swallow it all, since I suspected feeding me with news that he had been ordered to disseminate. the kraal Presently we came to the mouth of the kloot' in which for I stood, and here, for greater convenience of conversation, we halted, on the open talk close in seen be not should we that well as it thought ot green plain beyond. The path here, I should add, ran past a clump smelt sweet, and bushes; I remember they bore a white flower that was, among were backed by some tall grass, elephant-grass I think it ~ . _ _ which grew mimosa trees. why don't " Magepa." I said, "if in truth there is to be fighting, Ntllk) "II |