A low murmur, whether of approval or the reverse it was difficult to say, ran round the line of assembled chiefs at this defiant speech from the mouth of one of the most powerful chiefs of the nation, but it subsided again instantly. "Have you aught further to say, O Mapela?" demanded the king. "Nay," answered Mapela, still in the same defiant tone of voice. "What I have already said should surely be sufficient." "It is," answered the king dryly, as he signed the guards to remove the rebel. "Is there anyone present who thinks and feels as does Mapela?" "Yea!" answered two of the implicated chiefs, named respectively Amakosa and N'Ampata, as they simultaneously sprang to their feet. "And have you, Amakosa, anything to add to, or take from, what Mapela has said?" demanded the king. "Nothing!" briefly answered Amakosa. "Or you, N'Ampata?" pressed the king. "Only this, O Great One! that I think it would have been better had we approached thee and opened our minds to thee before conspiring against thee. But the plan was Sekosini's, and he would listen to no such proposal; while I, who had been sworn to secrecy, dared not break my oath," answered N'Ampata. "Why not?" demanded Lobelalatutu. "When I was placed upon the throne, did not you, N'Ampata, with all the other chiefs, swear allegiance and loyalty to me? Yet you have dared to break that oath. Why, then, should you not dare to break your oath to Sekosini? Was he greater than I, or his power more than mine?" "He persuaded me that it was; and also that, since in the opinion of many you were misgoverning the nation, I should be justified in breaking my oath of allegiance," was the answer. "Take them away!" commanded the king. And when they had gone he called upon the two remaining chiefs, Moroosi and Sekukuni, to justify themselves, if they could. "I have naught to say, O Great One!" answered Moroosi, "save that, as it was with Ingona so was it with me." "And you, Sekukuni?" demanded the king. "I also am the victim of Sekosini's wiles and his serpent tongue," answered the chief. "I should never have joined the conspiracy had he not led me secretly to believe that when thou wert gone I should be made king in thy stead. And the prospect dazzled me, for I believed that I could govern better than thou." Again the king waved his hand, and the last two of the conspirators were led away, amid an intense, breathless, almost ominous silence. For a few minutes Lobelalatutu sat, with his chin resting upon his chest, apparently reviewing the situation; then, lifting his head, he spoke.