midday
Certainly they fear during the dark hours to pass the place where the hero is buried . Oddly enough , too , a new legend or prophecy has arisen in the land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise among barbarous and semi-civilized people , blowing , like the wind , no man knows whence . According to this saying , so long as the old Zulu sits there , looking down the stairway he defended when alive , so long will the New House of the Stairway , springing from the union of the Englishman and Nyleptha , endure and flourish ; but when he is taken from thence , or when , ages after , his bones at last crumble into dust , the House will fall , and the Stairway shall fall , and the Nation of the Zu-Vendi shall cease to be a Nation . It was a week after Nyleptha 's visit , when I had begun to get about a little in the middle of the day , that a message came to me from Sir Henry to say that Sorais would be brought before them in the Queen 's first antechamber at midday , and requesting my attendance if possible . Accordingly , greatly drawn by curiosity to see this unhappy woman once more , I made shift , with the help of that kind little fellow Alphonse , who is a perfect treasure to me , and that of another waiting-man , to reach the antechamber . I got there , indeed , before anybody else , except a few of the great Court officials who had been bidden to be present , but I had scarcely seated myself before Sorais was brought in by a party of guards , looking as beautiful and defiant as ever , but with a worn expression on her proud face . She was , as usual , dressed in her royal ` kaf ' , emblazoned with the emblem of the Sun , and in her right hand she still held the toy spear of silver .