Now I return thee whence thou camest,
there to await me in the new birth.
"O Spirits of my fathers, toiling through many years I have
avenged you on the House of Senzangacona, and never again will
there be a king of the Zulus, for the last of them lies dead by
my hand. O my murdered wives and my children, I have offered up
to you a mighty sacrifice, a sacrifice of thousands upon
thousands.
"O Umkulu-kulu, Great One of the heavens, who sentest me to
earth, I have done thy work upon the earth and bring back to thee
thy harvest of the seed that thou hast sown, a blood-red harvest,
O Umkulu-kulu. Be still, be still, my Snake, the sun arises, and
soon, soon shalt thou rest in the water that wast thine from the
beginning of the world!"
The voice ceased, and presently a spear of light piercing the
mists, lit upon the speaker. It was Zikali and about him was
wound a great yellow-bellied snake, of which the black head with
flickering tongue waved above his head and seemed from time to
time to lick him on the brow. (I suppose it had come to him from
the water, for its skin glittered as though with wet.) He stood
up on tottering feet, staring at the red eye of the rising sun,
then crying, _"Finished, finished with joy!"_ with a loud and
dreadful laughter, he plunged into the foaming pool beneath.
Such was the end of Zikali the Wizard, Opener of Roads, the
"Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born," and such was the
vengeance that he worked upon the great House of Senzangacona,
bringing it to naught and with it the nation of the Zulus.
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