Ox-hide shields and bundles of assegais were hung on the walls, which were thin enough to suggest the idea of breaking through them to escape; but that idea no sooner occurred to the unfortunate prisoner than he abandoned it. He remembered the massive palisade, and knew that within and without were the Zulu warriors in thousands, for the kraal was the quarters of an Impi or entire column. After a time he was brought before Cetewayo, who was seated in a kind of chair at the door of a larger hut than the rest, with a number of indunas (or colonels) about him, all naked save at the loins, wearing fillets or circlets on their shaven heads, and armed with rifles; and now, sooth to say, as he eyed this savage potentate wistfully and with dread anxiety, Florian Melfort thought not unnaturally that he was face to face with a death that might be sudden or one of acute and protracted torture. There is no need for describing the appearance of the sable monarch, with whose face and burly figure the London photographers have made all so familiar; but on this occasion though he was nude, all save a royal mantle over his shoulders--a mantle said to have borne 'a suspicious resemblance to an old tablecloth with fringed edges'--he wore his other 'royal' ensignia, which these artists perhaps never saw--a kind of conical helmet or head-dress, with a sort of floating puggaree behind, and garnished by three feathers, not like the modern badge of the Prince of Wales--but like three old regimental hackles, one on the top and one on each side. Near him Florian saw a white man, clad like a Boer, whom he supposed to be another unfortunate prisoner like himself, but who proved to be that strange character known as 'Cetewayo's Dutchman,' who was there to act as interpreter. This personage, whose name was Cornelius Viljoen, had been a Natal trader, and acted as a kind of secretary to the Zulu King throughout the war; but latterly he was treated with suspicion, and remained as a prisoner in his hands, and now he was ordered to ask Florian a series of questions. 'Can you unspike the two pieces of cannon captured by the warriors of Dabulamanza at Isandhlwana?' These were seven-pounder Royal Artillery guns. 'I cannot,' replied Florian. 'Why?' 'Because I am not a gunner--neither am I a mechanic,' he replied, unwilling to perform this task for the service of the enemy. 'The king desires me to tell you that if you can do this, and teach his young men the way to handle these guns, he will give you a hundred head of oxen, a kraal by the Pongola River, where your people will never find you, and you will ever after be a great man among the Zulus.' Again Florian protested his inability, assuring them that he knew nothing of artillery.