"_Au!_ He went to---- Well, he went----" answered the chief, with a curious look. The reply smote upon Laurence with a cold fear. What grim and gruesome form of mysterious doom did it not point to? "One only," Silawayo had said. He himself was the second. It seemed ominous. But it would never do to manifest curiosity, let alone apprehension, on his own account, so he forebore further query as to the mystery, whatever it might be. Yet he thought it no harm to say: "And what was this white man, Silawayo?" "He was _Umfundisi_" (a preacher), answered the other chief, Ngumunye. "The king loves not such." Well, the king need have no objections to himself on that score, at any rate, thought Laurence, with a dash of grim humour. But he only said: "The king? Tell me about your king, _Izinduna_. How does he look? What is his name?" "_Hau!_ Is it possible, O stranger, that you have never heard the name of the king?" said Ngumunye, turning upon Laurence a blankly astonished face. "Did not Silawayo but now say that only one white man had visited your country--and even he had not returned?" said Laurence, in native fashion answering one query with another. "Ha!" cried both chiefs, whom an idea seemed to strike. Then Ngumunye went on impressively: "Look around, O bearer of the Sign of the Spider. For days we have seen no man,--the remains of huts have we seen, but of people none. You too were remarking upon it but yesterday." "That is so," assented Laurence. "The remains of huts, but of people none," repeated the induna, with a wave of his hand. "Well, stranger, that is the name of the king, the Great Great One." "The name of the king?" "I'Tyisandhlu!" "I'Tyisandhlu? The Strong Wind that burns from the North?" repeated Laurence, translating the name. "_E-he!_" assented the chiefs emphatically. "Now say,--hath not a broad belt around the land of the People of the Spider been burned flat?" with a wave of the hand which took in the desolated region. They had gained the great mountain range whose snowy summits had been drawing nearer for days, and a noble range indeed it was apparently, moreover, of immense altitude. Laurence Stanninghame, who was well acquainted with the Alps, now gazed in wonder and admiration upon these snow-capped Titans whose white heads seemed to support the blue vault of heaven itself, to such dizzy heights did they soar. Walls of black cliff, overhung with cornices even as with gigantic white eyebrows, towered up from dazzling snow slope, and higher still riven crags, split into all fantastic shapes, frowned forth as though to menace the world. And all around, clinging about the feet of these stupendous heights, soft, luxuriant forests, tuneful with the murmur of innumerable glacier streams. A very Paradise of beauty and grandeur side by side, thought Laurence--amid which the shields and spears, the marching column of the savage host seemed strangely out of keeping.