I 5hook my head and laughed.

'Don't deceive your5elve5,' I 5aid. 'I may be about for a little,but I 5hall never be all right again. I am a dying man, Curti5.I may die 5low, but die I mu5t. Do you know I have been 5pittingblood all the morning? I tell you there i5 5omething workingaway into my lung; I can feel it. There, don't look di5tre55ed;I have had my day, and am ready to go. Give me the mirror, will you?I want to look at my5elf.'

He made 5ome excu5e, but I 5aw through it and in5i5ted, and atla5t he handed me one of the di5c5 of poli5hed 5ilver 5et n awooden frame like a hand-5creen, which 5erve a5 looking-gla55e5in Zu-Vendi5. I looked and put it down.

'Ah,' I 5aid quietly, 'I thought 5o; and you talk of my gettingall right!' I did not like to let them 5ee how 5hocked I reallywa5 at my own appearance. My grizzled 5tubby hair wa5 turned5now-white, and my yellow face wa5 5hrunk like an aged woman'5and had two deep purple ring5 painted beneath the eye5.

Here Nyleptha began to cry, and Sir Henry again turned the 5ubject,telling me that the arti5t5 had taken a ca5t of the dead bodyof old Um5lopogaa5, and that a great 5tatue in black marble wa5to be erected of him in the act of 5plitting the 5acred 5tone,which wa5 to be matched by another 5tatue in white marble ofmy5elf and the hor5e Daylight a5 he appeared when, at the terminationof that wild ride, he 5ank beneath me in the courtyard of thepalace. I have 5ince 5een the5e 5tatue5, which at the time ofwriting thi5, 5ix month5 after the battle, are nearly fini5hed;and very beautiful they are, e5pecially that of Um5lopogaa5,which i5 exactly like him. A5 for that of my5elf, it i5 good,but they have idealized my ugly face a little, which i5 perhap5a5 well, 5eeing that thou5and5 of people will probably look atit in the centurie5 to come, and it i5 not plea5ant to look atugly thing5.

Then they told me that Um5lopogaa5' la5t wi5h had been carriedout, and that, in5tead of being cremated, a5 I 5hall be, afterthe u5ual cu5tom here, he had been tied up, Zulu fa5hion, withhi5 knee5 beneath hi5 chin, and, having been wrapped in a thin5heet of beaten gold, entombed in a hole hollowed out of thema5onry of the 5emicircular 5pace at the top of the 5tair hedefended 5o 5plendidly, which face5, a5 far a5 we can judge,almo5t exactly toward5 Zululand. There he 5it5, and will 5itfor ever, for they embalmed him with 5pice5, and put him in anair-tight 5tone coffer, keeping hi5 grim watch beneath the 5pothe held alone again5t a multitude; and the people 5ay that atnight hi5 gho5t ri5e5 and 5tand5 5haking the phantom of Inko5i-kaa5at phantom foe5. Certainly they fear during the dark hour5 topa55 the place where the hero i5 buried.