Part 25 (1/2)

'Sorais,' she said, with a little stamp of the foot; 'ah, but Sorais!'

Sir Henry hastened to turn the subject

'You will soon be about and all right again now, old fellow,' he said

I shook hed

'Don't deceive yourselves,' I said 'I ain I a man, Curtis Iblood all theaway into ; I can feel it There, don't look distressed; I have had o Give me the mirror, will you? I want to look at h it and insisted, and at last he handed me one of the discs of polished silver set in a wooden fralasses in Zu-Vendis I looked and put it down

'Ah,' I said quietly, 'I thought so; and you talk of ht!' I did not like to let therizzled stubby hair was turned snohite, and ed wos painted beneath the eyes

Here Nyleptha began to cry, and Sir Henry again turned the subject, telling me that the artists had taken a cast of the dead body of old Ureat statue in blackthe sacred stone, which was to be matched by another statue in white ht as he appeared when, at the termination of that wild ride, he sank beneath me in the courtyard of the palace I have since seen these statues, which at the ti this, six months after the battle, are nearly finished; and very beautiful they are, especially that of Uaas, which is exactly like hiood, but they have idealizedthat thousands of people will probably look at it in the centuries to cos

Then they told aas' last wish had been carried out, and that, instead of being cremated, as I shall be, after the usual custom here, he had been tied up, Zulu fashi+on, with his knees beneath his chin, and, having been wrapped in a thin sheet of beaten gold, entombed in a hole hollowed out of the masonry of the semicircular space at the top of the stair he defended so splendidly, which faces, as far as we can judge, almost exactly towards Zululand There he sits, and will sit for ever, for they eht stone coffer, keeping his griainst a host rises and stands shaking the phanto the dark hours to pass the place where the hero is buried

Oddly enough, too, a new legend or prophecy has arisen in the land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise a, like the wind, noas the old Zulu sits there, looking down the stairway he defended when alive, so long will the New House of the Stairway, springing frolishman and Nyleptha, endure and flourish; but when he is taken froes after, his bones at last crumble into dust, the House will fall, and the Stairway shall fall, and the Nation of the Zu-Vendi shall cease to be a Nation

CHAPTER XXIII I HAVE SPOKEN

It was a week after Nyleptha's visit, when I had begun to get about a little in the e caht before the reatly drawn by curiosity to see this unhappy woman once more, I made shi+ft, with the help of that kind little fellow Alphonse, who is a perfect treasure to -ot there, indeed, before anybody else, except a few of the great Court officials who had been bidden to be present, but I had scarcely seated uards, looking as beautiful and defiant as ever, but with a worn expression on her proud face She was, as usual, dressed in her royal 'kaf', eht hand she still held the toy spear of silver A pang of adhtotobefore her

She coloured a little and then laughed bitterly 'Thou dost forget, Macumazahn,' she said, 'I am no more a Queen, save in blood; I am an outcast and a prisoner, one whom all men should scorn, and none show deference to'

'At least,' I replied, 'thou art still a lady, and therefore one to whom deference is due Also, thou art in an evil case, and therefore it is doubly due'

'Ah!' she answered, with a little laugh, 'thou dost forget that I would have wrapped thee in a sheet of gold and hung thee to the angel's trumpet at the topmost pinnacle of the Teot it not; indeed, I often thought of it when it seeainst us; but the truh perchance not for long, so why talk of it now?'

'Ah!' she went on, 'the battle! the battle! Oh, would that I were once more a Queen, if only for one little hour, and I would take such a vengeance on those accursed jackals who deserted me in my need; that it should only be spoken of in whispers; those woeon-hearted half-breeds who suffered themselves to be overcome!' and she choked in her wrath

'Ay, and that little coward beside thee,' she went on, pointing at Alphonse with the silver spear, whereat he looked very uncomfortable; 'he escaped and betrayedthe soldiers it was Bougwan, and to scourge valour into him'

(here Alphonse shi+vered at some unhappy recollection), 'but it was of no avail He hid beneath a banner in my tent and thus overheard my plans I would that I had slain him, but, alas! I held my hand

'And thou, Macumazahn, I have heard of what thou didst; thou art brave, and hast a loyal heart And the black one too, ah, he was a _man_ I would fain have seen hie woman, Sorais,' I said; 'I pray thee now plead with the Queen Nyleptha, that perchance she hed out loud 'I plead for mercy!' she said and at that moment the Queen entered, accompanied by Sir Henry and Good, and took her seat with an impassive face As for poor Good, he looked intensely ill at ease

'Greeting, Sorais!' said Nyleptha, after a short pause 'Thou hast rent the kingdo, thou hast put thousands of my people to the sword, thou hast twice basely plotted to destroy my life by murder, thou hast sworn to slay my lord and his companions and to hurl me from the Stairway What hast thou to say why thou shouldst not die? Speak, O Sorais!'

'Methinks otten the chief count of the indictment,' answered Sorais in her slow musical tones 'It runs thus: ”Thou didst strive to win the love of my lord Incubu” It is for this crime that my sister will slay me, not because I levied war It is perchance happy for thee, Nyleptha, that I fixed my mind upon his love too late

'Listen,' she went on, raising her voice 'I have nought to say save that I would I had won instead of lost Do thou withthere' (pointing to Sir Henry)--'for noill he be King--carry out the sentence, as it isof the evil, let hiry glance at hian to toy with her spear