CHAPTER XVII
KAATJE BRINGS NEWS
Zikali burst into one of his peals of laughter, so unholy that
it caused the blood in me to run cold.
"The King's word is _war_," he cried. "Let Nomkubulwana take
that word back to heaven. Let Macumazahn take it to the White
Men. Let the captains cry it to the regiments and let the world
grow red. The King has chosen, though mayhap, had I been he, I
should have chosen otherwise; yet what am I but a hollow reed
stuck in the ground up which the spirits speak to men? It is
finished, and I, too, am finished for a while. Farewell, O King!
Where shall we meet again, I wonder? On the earth or under it?
Farewell, Macumazahn, I know where we shall meet, though you do
not. O King, I return to my own place, I pray you to command
that none come near me or trouble me with words, for I am spent."
"It is commanded," said Cetewayo.
As he spoke the fire went out mysteriously, and the wizard rose
and hobbled off at a surprising pace round the corner of the
projecting rock.
"Stay!" I called, "I would speak with you;" but although I am
sure he heard me, he did not stop or look round.
I sprang up to follow him, but at some sign from Cetewayo two
indunas barred my way.
"Did you not hear the King's command, White Man?" one of them
asked coldly, and the tone of his question told me that war
having been declared, I was now looked upon as a foe. I was
about to answer sharply when Cetewayo himself addressed me.
"Macumazahn," he said, "you are now my enemy, like all your
people, and from sunrise to-morrow morning your safe-conduct here
ends, for if you are found at Ulundi two hours after that time,
it will be lawful for any man to kill you. Yet as you are still
my guest, I will give you an escort to the borders of the land.
Moreover, you shall take a message from me to the Queen's
officers and captains. It is--that I will send an answer to
their demands upon the point of an assegai. Yet add this, that
not I but the English, to whom I have always been a friend,
sought this war. If Sompseu had suffered me to fight the Boers
as I wished to do, it would never have come about. But he threw
the Queen's blanket over the Transvaal and stood upon it, and now
he declares that lands which were always the property of the
Zulus, belong to the Boers. Therefore I take back all the
promises which I made to him when he came hither to call me King
in the Queen's name, and no more do I call him my father. As for
the disbanding of my impis, let the English disband them if they
can. I have spoken.
"And I have heard," I answered, "and will deliver your words
faithfully, though I hold, King, that they come from the lips of
one whom the Heavens have made mad."
At this bold speech some of the Councillors started up with
threatening gestures. Cetewayo waved them back and answered
quietly, "Perhaps it was the Queen of Heaven who stood on yonder
rock who made me mad. Or perhaps she made me wise, as being the
Spirit of our people she should surely do. That is a question
which the future will decide, and if ever we should meet after it
is decided, we will talk it over. Now, hamba gachle! (go in
peace)."
"I hear the king and I will go, but first I would speak with
Zikali."
"Then, White Man, you must wait till this war is finished or till
you meet him in the Land of Spirits. Goza, lead Macumazahn back
to his hut and set a guard about it. At the dawn a company of
soldiers will be waiting with orders to take him to the border.
You will go with him and answer for his safety with your life.
Let him be well treated on the road as my messenger."
Then Cetewayo rose and stood while all present gave him the royal
salute, after which he walked away down the kloof. I remained
for a moment, making pretence to examine the blade of the little
assegai that had been thrown by the figure on the rock, which I
had picked from the ground. This historical piece of iron which
I have no doubt is the same that Chaka always carried, wherewith,
too, he is said to have killed his mother, Nandie, by the way I
still possess, for I slipped it into my pocket and none tried to
take it from me.
Really, however, I was wondering whether I could in any way gain
access to Zikali, a problem that was settled for me by a sharp
request to move on, uttered in a tone which admitted of no
further argument.
Well, I trudged back to my hut in the company of Goza, who was so
overcome by all the wonders he had seen that he could scarcely
speak. Indeed, when I asked him what he thought of the figure
that had appeared upon the rock, he replied petulantly that it
was not given to him to know whence spirits came or of what stuff
they were made, which showed me that he at any rate believed in
its supernatural origin and that it had appeared to direct the
Zulus to make war. This was all I wanted to find out, so I said
nothing more, but gave up my mind to thought of my own position
and difficulties.
Here I was, ordered on pain of death to depart from Ulundi at the
dawn. And yet how could I obey without seeing Zikali and
learning from him what had happened to Anscombe and Heda, or at
any rate without communicating with him? Once more only did I
break silence, offering to give Goza a gun if he would take a
message from me to the great wizard. But with a shake of his big
head, he answered that to do so would mean death, and guns were
of no good to a dead man since, as I had shown myself that night,
they had no power to shoot a spirit.
This closed the business on which I need not have troubled to
enter, since an answer to all my questionings was at hand.
We reached the hut where Goza gave me over to the guard of
soldiers, telling their officer that none were to be permitted to
enter it save myself and that I was not to be to permitted to
come out of it until he, Goza, came to fetch me a little before
the dawn.
The officer asked if any one else was to be permitted to come
out, a question that surprised me, though vaguely, for I was
thinking of other things. Then Goza departed, remarking that he
hoped I should sleep better than he would, who "felt spirits in
his bones and did not wish to kiss them as I seemed to like to
do." I replied facetiously, thinking of the bottle of brandy,
that ere long I meant to feel them in my stomach, whereat he
shook his head again with the air of one whom nothing connected
with me could surprise, and vanished.
I crawled into the hut and put the board over the bee-hole-like
entrance behind me. Then I began to hunt for the matches in my
pocket and pricked my finger with the point of Chaka's historical
assegai. While I was sucking it to my amazement I heard the
sound of some one breathing on the further side of the hut. At
first I thought of calling the guard, but on reflection found the
matches and lit the candle, which stood by the blankets that
served me as a bed. As soon as it burned up I looked towards the
sound, and to my horror perceived the figure of a sleeping woman,
which frightened me so much that I nearly dropped the candle.
To tell the truth, so obsessed was I with Zikali and his ghosts
that for a few moments it occurred to me that this might be the
Shape with which I had talked an hour or two before. I mean that
which had seemed to resemble the long-dead lady Mameena, or
rather the person made up to her likeness, come here to continue
our conversation. At any rate I was sure, and rightly, that here
was more of the handiwork of Zikali who wished to put me in some
dreadful position for reasons of his own.
Pulling myself together I advanced upon the lady, only to find
myself no wiser, since she was totally covered by a kaross. Now
what was to be done? To escape, of which of course I had thought
at once, was impossible since it meant an assegai in my ribs. To
call to the guard for help seemed indiscreet, for who knew what
those fools might say? To kick or shake her would undoubtedly be
rude and, if it chanced to be the person who had played Mameena,
would certainly provoke remarks that I should not care to face.
There seemed to be only one resource, to sit down and wait till
she woke up.
This I did for quite a long time, till at last the absurdity of
the position and, I will admit, my own curiosity overcame me,
especially as I was very tired and wanted to go to sleep. So
advancing most gingerly, I turned down the kaross from over the
head of the sleeping woman, much wondering whom I should see, for
what man is there that a veiled woman does not interest? Indeed,
does not half the interest of woman lie in the fact that her
nature is veiled from man, in short a mystery which he is always
seeking to solve at his peril, and I might add, never succeeds in
solving?
Well, I turned down that kaross and next instant stepped back
amazed and, to tell the truth, somewhat disappointed, for there,
with her mouth open, lay no wondrous and spiritual Mameena, but
the stout, earthly and most prosaic--Kaatje!
"Confound the woman!" thought I to myself. "What is she doing
here?"
Then I remembered how wrong it was to give way to a sense of
romantic disappointment at such a time, though as a matter of
fact it is always in a moment of crisis or of strained nerves
that we are most open to the insidious advances of romance. Also
that there was no one on earth, or beyond it, whom I ought more
greatly to have rejoiced to see. I had left Kaatje with Anscombe
and Heda; therefore Kaatje could tell me what had become of them.
And at this thought my heart sank--why was she here in this most
inappropriate meeting-place, alone? Feeling that these were
questions which must be answered at once, I prodded Kaatje in the
ribs with my toe until, after a good deal of prodding, she awoke,
sat up and yawned, revealing an excellent set of teeth in her
cavernous, quarter-cast mouth. Then perceiving a man she opened
that mouth even wider, as I thought with the idea of screaming
for help. But here I was first with her, for before a sound
could issue I had filled it full with the corner of the kaross,
exclaiming in Dutch as I did so--
"Idiot of a woman, do you not know the Heer Quatermain when you
see him?"
"Oh! Baas," she answered, "I thought you were some wicked Zulu
come to do me a mischief." Then she burst into tears and sobs
which I could not stop for at least three minutes.
"Be quiet, you fat fool!" I cried exasperated, "and tell me,
where are your mistress and the Heer Anscombe?"
"I don't know, Baas, but I hope in heaven" (Kaatje was some kind
of a Christian), she replied between her sobs.
"In heaven! What do you mean?" I asked, horrified.
"I mean, Baas, that I hope they are in heaven, because when last
I saw them they were both dead, and dead people must be either in
heaven or hell, and heaven, they say, is better than hell."
"_Dead!_ Where did you see them dead?"
"In that Black Kloof, Baas, some days after you left us and went
away. The old baboon man who is called Zikali gave us leave
through the witch-girl, Nombe, to go also. So the Baas Anscombe
set to work to inspan the horses, the Missie Heda helping him,
while I packed the things. When I had nearly finished Nombe
came, smiling like a cat that has caught two mice, and beckoned
to me to follow her. I went and saw the cart inspanned with the
four horses all looking as though they were asleep, for their
heads hung down. Then after she had stared at me for a long
while Nombe led me past the horses into the shadow of the
overhanging cliff. There I saw my mistress and the Baas Anscombe
lying side by side quite dead."
"How do you know that they were dead?" I gasped. "What had
killed them?"
"I know that they were dead because they _were_ dead, Baas.
Their mouths and eyes were open and they lay upon their backs
with their arms stretched out. The witch-girl, Nombe, said some
Kaffirs had come and strangled them and then gone away again, or
so I understood who cannot speak Zulu so very well. Who the
Kaffirs were or why they came she did not say."
"Then what did you do?" I asked.
I ran back to the hut, Baas, fearing lest I should be strangled
also, and wept there till I grew hungry. When I came out of it
again they were gone. Nombe showed me a place under a tree where
the earth was disturbed. She said that they were buried there by
order of her master, Zikali. I don't know what became of the
horses or the cart."
"And what happened to you afterwards?"
"Baas, I was kept for several days, I cannot remember how many,
and only allowed out within the fence round the huts. Nombe came
to see me once, bringing this," and she produced a package sewn
up in a skin. "She said that I was to give it to you with a
message that those whom you loved were quite safe with One who is
greater than any in the land, and therefore that you must not
grieve for them whose troubles were over. I think it was two
nights after this that four Zulus came, two men and two women,
and led me away, as I thought to kill me. But they did not kill
me; indeed they were very kind to me, although when I spoke to
them they pretended not to understand. They took me a long
journey, travelling for the most part in the dark and sleeping in
the day. This evening when the sun set they brought me through a
Kaffir town and thrust me into the hut where I am without
speaking to any one. Here, being very tired, I went to sleep,
and that is all."
And quite enough too, thought I to myself. Then I put her
through a cross-examination, but Kaatje was a stupid woman
although a good and faithful servant, and all her terrible
experiences had not sharpened her intelligence. Indeed, when I
pressed her she grew utterly confused, began to cry, thereby
taking refuge in the last impregnable female fortification, and
snivelled out that she could not bear to talk of her dear
mistress any more. So I gave it up, and two minutes later she
was literally snoring, being very tired, poor thing.
Now I tried to think matters out as well as this disturbance
would allow, for nothing hinders thought so much as snores. But
what was the use of thinking? There was her story to take or to
leave, and evidently the honest creature believed what she said.
Further, how could she be deceived on such a point? She swore
that she had seen Anscombe and Heda dead and afterwards had seen
their graves.
Moreover, there was confirmation in Nombe's message which could
not well have been invented, that spoke of their being well in
the charge of a "Great One," a term by which the Zulus designate
God, with all their troubles finished. The reason and manner of
their end were left unrevealed. Zikali might have murdered them
for his own purposes, or the Zulus might have killed them in
obedience to the king's order that no white people in the land
were to be allowed to live. Or perhaps the Basutos from
Sekukuni's country, with whom the Zulus had some understanding,
had followed and done them to death; indeed the strangling
sounded more Basuto than Zulu--if they were really strangled.
Almost overcome though I was, I bethought me of the package and
opened it, only to find another apparent proof of their end, for
it contained Heda's jewels as I had found them in the bag in the
safe; also a spare gold watch belonging to Anscombe with his
coat-of-arms engraved upon it. That which he wore was of silver
and no doubt was buried with him, since for superstitious reasons
the natives would not have touched anything on his person after
death. This seemed to me to settle the matter, presumptively at
any rate, since to show that robbery was not the cause of their
murder, their most valuable possessions which were not upon their
persons had been sent to me, their friend.
So this was the end of all my efforts to secure the safety and
well-being of that most unlucky pair. I wept when I thought of
it there in the darkness of the hut, for the candle had burned
out, and going on to my knees, put up an earnest prayer for the
welfare of their souls; also that I might be forgiven my folly in
leading them into such danger. And yet I did it for the best,
trying to judge wisely in the light of such experience of the
world as I possessed.
Now alas! when I am old I have come to the conclusion that those
things which one tries to do for the best one generally does
wrong, because nearly always there is some tricky fate at hand to
mar them, which in this instance was named Zikali. The fact is,
I suppose, that man who thinks himself a free agent, can scarcely
be thus called, at any rate so far as immediate results are
concerned. But that is a dangerous doctrine about which I will
say no more, for I daresay that he is engaged in weaving a great
life-pattern of which he only sees the tiniest piece.
One thing comforted me a little. If these two were dead I could
now leave Zululand without qualms. Of course I was obliged to
leave in any case, or die, but somehow that fact would not have
eased my conscience. Indeed I think that had I believed they
still lived, in this way or in that I should have tried not to
leave, because I should have thought it for the best to stay to
help them, whereby in all human probability I should have brought
about my own death without helping them at all. Well, it had
fallen out otherwise and there was an end. Now I could only hope
that they had gone to some place where there are no more
troubles, even if, at the worst, it were a place of rest too deep
for dreams.
Musing thus at last I dozed off, for I was so tired that I think
I should have slept although execution awaited me at the dawn
instead of another journey. I did not sleep well because of that
snoring female on the other side of the hut whose presence
outraged my sense of propriety and caused me to be invaded by
prophetic dreams of the talk that would ensue among those
scandalmongering Zulus. Yes, it was of this I dreamed, not of
the great dangers that threatened me or of the terrible loss of
my friends, perhaps because to many men, of whom I suppose I am
one, the fear of scandal or of being the object of public notice,
is more than the fear of danger or the smart of sorrow.
So the night wore away, till at length I woke to see the gleam of
dawn penetrating the smoke-hole and dimly illuminating the
recumbent form of Kaatje, which to me looked most unattractive.
Presently I heard a discreet tapping on the doorboard of the hut
which I at once removed, wriggling swiftly through the hole,
careless in my misery as to whether I met an assegai the other
side of it or not. Without a guard of eight soldiers was
standing, and with them Goza, who asked me if I were ready to
start.
"Quite," I answered, "as soon as I have saddled my horse," which
by the way had been led up to the hut.
Very soon this was done, for I brought out most of my few
belongings with me and the bag of jewels was in my pocket. Then
it was that the officer of the guard, a thin and
melancholy-looking person, said in a hollow voice, addressing
himself to Goza--
"The orders are that the White Man's wife is to go with him.
Where is she?"
"Where a man's wife should be, in his hut I suppose," answered
Goza sleepily.
Rage filled me at the words. Seldom do I remember being so
angry.
"Yes," I said, "if you mean that Half-cast whom someone has
thrust upon me, she is in there. So if she is to come with us,
perhaps you will get her out."
Thus adjured the melancholy-looking captain, who was named
Indudu, perhaps because he or his father had longed to the Dudu
regiment, crawled into the hut, whence presently emerged sounds
not unlike those which once I heard when a ringhals cobra
followed a hare that I had wounded into a hole, a muffled sound
of struggling and terror. These ended in the sudden and violent
appearance of Kaatje's fat and dishevelled form, followed by that
of the snakelike Indudu.
Seeing me standing there before a bevy of armed Zulus, she
promptly fell upon my neck with a cry for help, for the silly
woman thought she was going to be killed by them. Gripping me as
an octopus grips its prey, she proceeded to faint, dragging me to
my knees beneath the weight of eleven stone of solid flesh.
"Ah!" said one of the Zulus not unkindly, "she is much afraid for
her husband whom she loves."
Well, I disentangled myself somehow, and seizing what I took to
be a gourd of water in that dim light, poured it over her head,
only to discover too late that it was not water but clotted milk.
However the result was the same, for presently she sat up, made a
dreadful-looking object by this liberal application of curds and
whey, whereon I explained matters to her to the best of my power.
The end of it was that after Indudu and Goza had wiped her down
with tufts of thatch dragged from the hut and I had collected her
gear with the rest of my own, we set her on the horse
straddlewise, and started, the objects of much interest among
such Zulus as were already abroad.
At the gate of the town there was a delay which made me nervous,
since in such a case as mine delay might always mean a
death-warrant. I knew that it was quite possible Cetewayo had
changed, or been persuaded to change his mind and issue a command
that I should be killed as one who had seen and knew too much.
Indeed this fear was my constant companion during all the long
journey to the Drift of the Tugela, causing me to look askance at
every man we met or who overtook us, lest he should prove to be a
messenger of doom.
Nor were these doubts groundless, for as I learned in the after
days, the Prime Minister, Umnyamana, and others had urged
Cetewayo strongly to kill me, and what we were waiting for at the
gate were his final orders on the subject. However, in this
matter, as in more that I could mention, the king played the part
of a man of honour, and although he seemed to hesitate for
reasons of policy, never had any intention of allowing me to be
harmed. On the contrary the command brought was that any one who
harmed Macumazahn, the king's guest and messenger, should die
with all his House.
Whilst we tarried a number of women gathered round us whose
conversation I could not help overhearing. One of them said to
another--
"Look at the white man, Watcher-by-Night, who can knock a fly off
an ox's horn with a bullet from further away than we could see
it. He it was who loved and was loved by the witch Mameena,
whose beauty is still famous in the land. They say she killed
herself for his sake, because she declared that she would never
live to grow old and ugly, so that he turned away from her. My
mother told me all about it only last night."
Then you have a liar for a mother, thought I to myself, for to
contradict such a one openly would have been undignified.
"Is it so?" asked one of her friends, deeply interested. "Then
the lady Mameena must have had a strange taste in men, for this
one is an ugly little fellow with hair like the grey ash of
stubble and a wrinkled face of the colour of a flayed skin that
has lain unstretched in the sun. However, I have been told that
witches always love those who look unnatural."
"Yes," said Number one," but you see now that he is old he has to
be satisfied with a different sort of wife. She is not
beautiful, is she, although she has dipped her head in milk to
make herself look white?"
So it went on till at length a runner arrived and whispered
something to Indudu who saluted, showing me that it was a royal
message, and ordered us to move. Of this I was glad, for had I
stopped there much longer, I think I should have personally
assaulted those gossiping female idiots.
Of our journey through Zululand there is nothing particular to
say. We saw but few people, since most of the men had been
called up to the army, and many of the kraals seemed to be
deserted by the women and children who perhaps were hidden away
with the cattle. Once, however, we met an impi about five
thousand strong, that seemed to cover the hillside like a herd of
game. It consisted of the Nodwengu and the Nokenke regiments,
both of which afterwards fought at Isandhlwana. Some of their
captains with a small guard came to see who we were, fine,
fierce-looking men. They stared at me curiously, and with one of
them, whom I knew, I had a little talk. He said that I was the
last white man in Zululand and that I was lucky to be alive, for
soon these, and he pointed to the hordes of warriors who were
streaming past, would eat up the English to "the last bone." I
answered that this remained to be seen, as the English were also
great eaters, whereat he laughed, replying, that it was true that
the white men had already taken the first bite--a very little
one, from which I gathered that some small engagement had
happened.
"Well, farewell, Macumazahn," he said, as he turned to go, "I
hope that we shall meet in the battle, for I want to see if you
can run as well as you can shoot."
This roused my temper and I answered him--
"I hope for your sake that we shall not meet, for if we do I
promise that before I run I will show you what you never saw
before, the gateway of the world of Spirits."
I mention this conversation because by some strange chance it
happened at Isandhlwana that I killed this man, who was named
Simpofu.
During all those days of trudging through hot suns and
thunderstorms, for I had to give up the mare to Kaatje who was
too fat to walk, or said she was, I was literally haunted by
thoughts of my murdered friends. Heaven knows how bitterly I
reproached myself for having brought them into Zululand. It
seemed so terribly sad that these young people who loved each
other and had so bright a future before them, should have escaped
from a tragic past merely to be overwhelmed by such a fate.
Again and again I questioned that lump Kaatje as to the details
of their end and of all that went before and followed after the
murder.
But it was quite useless; indeed, as time went on she seemed to
become more nebulous on the point as though a picture were fading
from her mind. But as to one thing she was always quite clear,
that she had seen them dead and had seen their new-made grave.
This she swore "by God in Heaven," completing the oath with an
outburst of tears in a way that would have carried conviction to
any jury, as it did to me.
And after all, what was more likely in the circumstances? Zikali
had killed them, or caused them to be killed; or possibly they
were killed in spite of him in obedience to the express, or
general, order of the king, if the deed was not done by the
Basutos. And yet an idea occurred to me. How about the woman on
the rock that the Zulus thought was their Princess of the
Heavens? Obviously this must be nonsense, since no such deity
existed, therefore the person must either have been a white woman
or one painted up to resemble a white woman; seen from a distance
in moonlight it was impossible to say which. Now, if it were a
white woman, she might, from her shape and height and the colour
of her hair, be Heda herself. Yet it seemed incredible that
Heda, whom Kaatje had seen dead some days before, could be
masquerading in such a part and make no sign of recognition to
me, even when I covered her with my pistol, whereas that Nombe
would play it was likely enough.
Only then Nombe must be something of a quick-change artist since
but a little while before she was beyond doubt personating the
dead Mameena. If it were not so I must have been suffering from
illusions, for certainly I seemed to see some one who looked like
Mameena, and only Zikali, and through him Nombe, had sufficient
knowledge to enable her to fill that role with such success.
Perhaps the whole business was an illusion, though if so Zikali's
powers must be great indeed. But then how about the assegai that
Nomkubulwana, or rather her effigy, had seemed to hold and throw,
whereof the blade was at present in my saddle-bag. That at any
rate was tangible and real, though of course there was nothing to
prove that it had really been Chaka's famous weapon.
Another thing that tormented me was my failure to see Zikali. I
felt as though I had committed a crime in leaving Zululand
without doing this and hearing from his own lips--well, whatever
he chose to tell me. I forget if I said that while we were
waiting at the gate where those silly women talked so much
nonsense about Mameena and Kaatje, that I made another effort
through Goza to get into touch with the wizard, but quite without
avail. Goza only answered what he said before, that if I wished
to die at once I had better take ten steps towards the Valley of
Bones, whence, he added parenthetically, the Opener of Roads had
already departed on his homeward journey. This might or might
not be true; at any rate I could find no possible way of coming
face to face with him, or even of getting a message to his ear.
No, I was not to blame; I had done all I could, and yet in my
heart I felt guilty. But then, as cynics would, say, failure is
guilt.
At length we came to the ford of the Tugela, and as fortunately
the water was just low enough, bade farewell to our escort before
crossing to the Natal side. My parting with Goza was quite
touching, for we felt that it partook of the nature of a deathbed
adieu, which indeed it did. I told him and the others that I
hoped their ends be easy, and that whether they met them by
bullets or by bayonet thrusts, the wounds would prove quickly
mortal so that they might not linger in discomfort or pain.
Recognizing my kind thought for their true welfare they thanked
me for it, though with no enthusiasm. Indudu, however, filled
with the spirit of repartee, or rather of "tu quoque", said in
his melancholy fashion that if he and I came face to face in war,
he would be sure to remember my words and to cut me up in the
best style, since he could not bear to think of me languishing on
a bed of sickness without my wife Kaatje to nurse me (they knew I
was touchy about Kaatje). Then we shook hands and parted.
Kaatje, hung round with paraphernalia like the White Knight in
"Alice through the Looking-glass," clinging to a cooking-pot and
weeping tears of terror, faced the foaming flood upon the mare,
while I grasped its tail.
When we were as I judged out of assegai shot, I turned, with the
water up to my armpits, and shouted some valedictory words.
"Tell your king," I said, "that he is the greatest fool in the
world to fight the English, since it will bring his country to
destruction and himself to disgrace and death, as at last, in the
words of your proverb, 'the swimmer goes down with the stream.'"
Here, as it happened, I slipped off the stone on which I was
standing and nearly went down with the stream myself.
Emerging with my mouth full of muddy water I waited till they had
done laughing and continued--
"Tell that old rogue, Zikali, that I know he has murdered my
friends and that when we meet again he and all who were in the
plot shall pay for it with their lives."
Now an irritated Zulu flung an assegai, and as the range proved
to be shorter than I thought, for it went through Kaatje's dress,
causing her to scream with alarm, I ceased from eloquence, and we
struggled on to the further bank, where at length we were safe.
Thus ended this unlucky trip of mine to Zululand.
