As they drew near the great kraal, two companies of girls, arrayed in beaded dancing dresses, advanced, waving green boughs, and, halting in front of the returning _impi_, sang a song of welcome. Their voices were melodious and pleasing to the last degree, imparting a singular charm to the somewhat monotonous repetition of the wild chant--now in a soft musical contralto, now shrilling aloft in a note of pealing gladness. Laurence, who was beginning to feel vividly interested in this strange race of valiant fighters, failed not to note that many of these girls were of extraordinarily prepossessing appearance, with their tall, beautiful figures and supple limbs, their clear eyes and white teeth, and bright, pleasing faces. Then suddenly song and dance alike ceased, and the women, parting into two companies, the whole _impi_ moved forward again, marching between them. The huge kraal was very near now, the palisade lined with the faces of eager spectators. But Laurence, quick to take in impressions, noticed that here there were no severed heads stuck about in ghastly ornament. This splendid race, as pitiless and unsparing in victory as it was intrepid in the field, was clearly above the more monstrous and revolting forms of savage barbarity. Then all further reflections were diverted into an entirely new channel, for the whole _impi_--tossing the unarmed right hand aloft--thundered aloud the salute royal, then fell prostrate: "_Bayete!_" The roar--sudden, and as one man--of that multitude of voices was startling, well-nigh terrifying. Laurence, unprepared for any such move, found himself standing there--he alone, erect--while around him, as so much mown corn, lay prostrate on their faces this immense company of armed warriors. Then he took in the reason. Just in front of where the _impi_ had halted rose a small cluster of trees crowning a knoll. Beneath the shade thus formed was a group of men, in a half-squatting, half-crouching attitude--all save one.