This was no easy business. They would have tried poison, but Tchaka was much too wary to die such a death, and, as force was clearly useless, they had recourse to treachery. They corrupted the favorite servant of Tchaka, a man named Bopa, and having armed themselves with unshafted heads of assagais, which could be easily concealed, they proceeded to the king’s house, where he was sitting in conference with several of his councillors, who were unarmed, according to Kaffir etiquette. The treacherous Bopa began his task by rudely interrupting the councillors, accusing them of telling falsehoods to the king, and behaving with an amount of insolence to which he well knew they would not submit. As they rose in anger, and endeavored to seize the man who had insulted them, Dingan and Umhlangani stole behind Tchaka, whose attention was occupied by the extraordinary scene, and stabbed him in the back. He attempted to escape, but was again stabbed by Bopa, and fell dying to the ground, where he was instantly slain. The affrighted councillors tried to fly, but were killed by the same weapons that had slain their master. This dread scene was terminated by an act partly resulting from native ferocity, and partly from superstition. The two murderers opened the still warm body of their victim, and drank the gall. Their subsequent quarrel, and the accession of Dingan to the throne, has already been mentioned. The new king would probably have been murdered by the soldiers on their return, had he not conciliated them by relaxing the strict laws of celibacy which Tchaka had enforced, and by granting indulgences of various kinds to the troops. As to the dead Mnande, the proximate cause of Tchaka’s death, more will be said on a future page. CHAPTER XIII. HUNTING.