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Cobby over his work murmured "efficient," and Rolls dodged one of the bubble-worlds which Cobby constantly created and launched.

"Aye," Rolls said—"has a sense of the value of seconds, and will always be a minute ahead of her enemy. She had reached the three regiments only one half-hour before the princes, within which interval she had done a world of work and winning. The third of the King's brothers, Dzinikulu, who related to me all this, told me that Sueela on her knees entreated Spiciewegiehotiu to kill the three princes there and then, but that Spicie, who always knows just how far she dares go at any juncture, and goes to the limit of that, but no farther, would not kill—bided her time. But she suffered for this: for soon afterwards she was poisoned—only scraped through by the skill of the doctoress, Mandaganya—and for two months it was as much as the sick King could do to keep Spiciewegiehotiu living—plot after plot. Then one midnight the King dies; Spicie still sick from poison; and quick the four princes rush, silently invest the sigodhlo—that's the royal enclosure—with troops that they have waiting ready, so to make sure of Spiciewegiehotiu. And now they look through the sigodhlo for Spicie, they ransack it: no Spicie. Spicie has fled, Sueela fled, Mandaganya fled—gone by a little back-way in the very nick of time. The princes give chase; scour the country; they cannot drop upon Spiciewegiehotiu. A rumour comes to them that Spicie has fled north-east to the garrison brigades on the M'Niami frontier, and is marching against them, with a force of 12,000 assegais; on which, with overwhelming numbers, they rush to encounter and crush these regiments. But while butting about, looking for this force, they come to know that it has given them the slip, and is now with Spiciewegiehotiu at the great-place, Eshowe, together with other forces. Back to Eshowe they rush, to crush her there. When they arrive in sight of Eshowe, at ten in the night, they see it all a sea of torches; it sends out to them a sound of carousing, of shield-beating, and drum-beating, dancing and fal-lals. They become aware that Spiciewegiehotiu has that evening been proclaimed Queen of Wo-Ngwanya: and they prepare to invest and besiege Eshowe. Meantime, hundreds on hundreds of emissaries are being sent out from Eshowe to their regiments, by Spiciewegiehotiu, with messages—let them not besiege Eshowe—let them march in—are not the gates flung wide for them? Let them come and kill her, let them come and kill the white lamb washed come up from the water, let them come and kill Wo-Ngwanya, let them come and kill the mother and luck of the Wa-Ngwanya—is not her bosom bared? bared are the young mother-breasts that suckle them—let them come and pierce it with hundreds of spear-points, that they may feel like sons and heroes. And the fakement works all right. As you know bubbles and sub-atoms, so she knows her Wo-Ngwanya, and can move the mass of it with her finger, as a chit's touch launches a ship. Though she has her forces posted out of sight about the town to pounce upon the enemy, if necessary, it isn't necessary, for, as the princes' impi marches upon Eshowe, the populace of Eshowe swarm out to call and talk to it; it thaws, dissolves, and walks off like waters; and in a frantic scene of timbrels and dancing, breast clutched to brother's breast, it enters the gates of Eshowe to the great square, at the top of which Spiciewegiehotiu sits throned within a glare and smoke of flambeaux, tired and sick and pallid, but smiling, seeing prostrate before her feet the manhood of Wo-Ngwanya, hearing howled to heaven from ten thousand throats the roar 'Bayeté!—Sovereign!' And in the midst of it the princes—for the second time—her prisoners."