“Now hand thou over this foreign wolf, and those who came to prey with him, to the doom of fire, for have they not committed the deadly sin against the Sun? or, Nyleptha, I give thee War—red War! Ay, I say to thee that the path of thy passion shall be marked out by the blazing of thy towns, and watered with the blood of those who cleave to thee. On thy head rest the burden of the deed, and in thy ears ring the groans of the dying and the cries of the widows and those who are left fatherless forever and forever.
“I tell thee I will tear thee, Nyleptha, the White Queen, from thy throne, and that thou shalt be hurled—ay, hurled even from the topmost stair of the great way to the foot thereof, in that thou hast covered the name of the house of him who built it with black shame. And I tell ye strangers, all save thou, Bougwan, whom because thou didst do me a service I will save alive if thou wilt leave these men and follow me” (here poor Good shook his head vigorously, and ejaculated “Can’t be done,” in English), “that I will wrap you in sheets of gold and hang you yet alive in chains from the four golden trumpets of the four angels that fly east and west and north and south from the giddiest pinnacles of the Temple, so that ye may be a token and a warning to the land. And as for thee, Incubu, thou shalt die in yet another fashion that I will not tell thee now.”
She ceased, panting for breath, for her passion shook her like a storm, and a murmur, partly of horror and partly of admiration, ran through the hall. Then Nyleptha answered calmly and with dignity,
“Ill would it become my place and dignity, O sister, so to speak as thou hast spoken, and so to threat as thou hast threatened. Yet if thou wilt make war, then will I strive to bear up against thee; for if my hand seem soft, yet shalt thou find it of iron when it grips thine armies by the throat. Sorais, I fear thee not. I weep for that which thou wilt bring upon our people and on thyself, but for myself I say—I fear thee not. Yet thou, who but yesterday didst strive to win my lover and my lord from me, whom today thou dost call a ‘foreign wolf,’ to be thy lover and thy lord” (here there was an immense sensation in the hall), “thou who but last night, as I have learned but since thou didst enter here, didst creep like a snake into my sleeping-place—ay, even by a secret way, and wouldst have foully murdered me, thy sister, as I lay asleep—”
“It is false, it is false!” rang out Agon’s and a score of other voices.
“It is not false,” said I, producing the broken point of the dagger and holding it up. “Where is the haft from which this flew, Sorais?”
“It is not false,” cried Good, determined at last to act like a loyal man. “I took her by the Queen’s bed, and on my breast the dagger broke.”
“Who is on my side?” cried Sorais, shaking her silver spear, for she saw that public sympathy was turning against her. “What, Bougwan, thou comest not?” she said, addressing Good, who was standing close to her, in a low, concentrated voice. “Thou pale-souled fool, for a reward thou shalt eat out thy heart with love of me and not be satisfied, and thou mightest have been my husband and a king! At least I hold thee in chains that cannot be broken.
“War! war! war!” she cried. “Here, with my hand upon the sacred stone that shall endure, so runs the prophecy, till the Zu-Vendi set their necks beneath an alien yoke, I declare war to the end. Who follows Sorais of the Night to victory and honour?”
Instantly the whole concourse began to break up in indescribable confusion. Many present hastened to throw in their lot with the “Lady of the Night,” but some came from her following to us. Amongst the former was an under-officer of Nyleptha’s own guard, who suddenly turned and made a run for the doorway through which Sorais’s people were already passing. Umslopogaas, who was present, and had taken the whole scene in, seeing with admirable presence of mind that if this soldier got away others would follow his example, seized the man, who drew his sword and struck at him. Thereon the Zulu sprang back with a shout, and avoiding the sword-cuts, began to peck at his foe with his terrible axe, till in a few seconds the man’s fate overtook him and he fell with a clash heavily and quite dead upon the marble floor.
This was the first blood spilled in the war.
“Shut the gates!” I shouted, thinking that we might perhaps catch Sorais so, and not being troubled with the idea of committing sacrilege. But the order came too late, her guards were already passing through them, and in another minute the streets echoed with the furious galloping of horses and the rolling of chariots.
So, drawing half the people after her, Sorais was soon passing like a whirlwind through the Frowning City on her road to her headquarters at M’Arstuna, a fortress situated a hundred and thirty miles to the north of Milosis.
And after that the city was alive with the endless tramp of regiments and preparations for war, and old Umslopogaas once more began to sit in the sunshine and go through a show of sharpening Inkosi-Kaas’s razor edge.
XIX
A Strange Wedding
One person, however, did not succeed in getting out in time before the gates were shut, and that was
