"It's nothing, dearest," she answered but quaveringly, and still forcing herself to smile. "Only--No, it's nothing. But--when people are here a long time, and you get to like them a lot and they go away--why it's-- oh, it's beastly. That's all, old father--" dashing away her tears, and forcing herself to smile in real earnest. "And I'm a little fool, that's all. But I won't be any more. See, I'm all right now." "My little Lyn! My own little one!" he repeated, kissing her tenderly, now rather more moved than she was. And Lyn was as good as her word. All his solicitous but furtive watching, failed to detect any sign or symptom that her outburst of grief was anything more than a perfectly natural and childlike manifestation of her warm little heart. And yet, there were times, when, recurring to it in his own mind, honest George Bayfield would grow grave and shake his head and ejaculate softly to himself: "My little Lyn! No--it can't be. Oh, Great Scot!" End of Book II. CHAPTER ONE. "WOZ'UBONE, KITI KWAZULU." Lo Bengula sat within the _esibayaneni_--the sacred enclosure wherein none dare intrude--at his great kraal, Bulawayo. The occupation on which the King was then engaged, was the homely and prosaic one of eating his breakfast. This consisted of a huge dish of _bubende_, being certain ingredients of the internal mechanism of the bullock, all boiled up with the blood, to the civilised palate an appalling article of diet, but highly favoured by the Matabele. Yet, while devouring this delicacy with vast appetite, the royal countenance was overcast and gloomy in the extreme. Lo Bengula sat alone. From without a continuous roar of many voices reached him. It was never hushed, the night through it had hardly been hushed, and this was early morning. Song after song, some improvised, others the old war-songs of the nation, interluded with long _paeans_ of his own praises, rising from the untiring throats of thousands of his warriors--yet the King, in his heart of hearts, was tired of the lot. He looked around upon his sheep and goats--for the sacred enclosure included the kraal which contained his private and particular flock--and he loved them, for he was by nature a born farmer, called by accident, and even then, reluctantly, to rule this nation of fierce and turbulent fighters. He looked upon the flocks surrounding him and wondered how much longer they would be his--how much longer anything would be his-- for war was not merely in the air but was actually at his gates; war with the whites, with whom he had ever striven to live on friendly and peaceful terms. But, as had long been foreseen, his people had forced his hand at last.