“What have you to say,” asked Rachel, “you who have dared to strike my servant?”
“Inkosazana,” he mumbled, “the maid was obstinate, and tried to run away, and our orders were to bring her to the King. Spare my life, I pray thee.”
“King,” said Rachel, “I have power over this man, have I not?”
“It is so,” answered Dingaan. “Kill him if thou wilt.”
Rachel seemed to consider while the poor wretch, with chattering teeth, implored her to forgive. Then she turned to Noie, saying:
“He struck you, not me. I give him to you to do by as you will. Shall he sleep to-night with the living or the dead?”
Noie looked at him, and next at a mark on her arm, and the induna, ceasing from his prayers to Rachel, clutched Noie by the ankle, and begged her mercy.
“Your life has been given to you,” he said, “give mine to me, lest ill-fortune follow you.”
“Do you remember,” asked Noie contemptuously, “how, when you had beaten me, yonder by the Tugela, you said you hoped that it would be your luck to put a spear through this heart of mine? And do you remember that I answered you that the spear would be over your own heart first, and that thereon you called me ‘Daughter of Wizards’ and struck me again—me, the child of Seyapi, upon whom the mantle of the Inkosazana lies, me who have drunk of her wisdom and of his—you struck _me_, you dog,” and lifting her foot she spurned him in the face.
Now the King and his company, concluding that the thing was finished, glanced at Rachel to see her point with the rod and thus give the man to death. But Rachel waited, sure that Noie had not done. Moreover, whatever Noie might say, she had determined to save him.
Meanwhile, the girl, after a pause, said:
“Were you a man you would be too proud to ask your life of me, but you are a dog; and, Dog, I remember that you have children, among them a daughter of my own age, whom I saw come out to greet you. For her sake, then, take your life, and with it this new name that I give you—‘Soldier-who-strikes-girls.’”
So the man rose, and weak with shame and the agony of suspense, crept swiftly from the place, fearing lest the Inkosazana or her servant might change her mind and kill him after all. But Noie’s name clung to him so closely that at length, unable to bear the ridicule of it, he and his family fled from Zululand.