His men were spread out for two hundred paces along both sides of the trail, but they were concentrated here at the bend. A good ambush must have depth to it, so if a victim breaks through the first. rank of attackers, there will be others waiting for him beyond. This was a good ambush. in bad ground on a steep narrow trail where a horse could not turn readily nor go ahead at full gallop. Bazo nodded to himself with satisfaction, then unarmed and shield less he went springing down the trail towards the plain, agile as a klipspringer over the rough track.

"It will be dark in half an hour," Harry Mellow called after Ralph. "We should find a place to camp." "There must be a path," Ralph rode with one fist on his hip and the felt hat pushed back on his head, looking up the wild cliff.

"What do you expect to find up there?" "I don't know, and that's the devil of it." Ralph grinned over his shoulder. He was unprepared and twisted off balance, so when his horse shied violently under him, he almost lost a stirrup and had to grab at the pommel of the saddle to prevent himself going over, but at the same time he yelled to Harry.

"Cover me!" and with his free hand Ralph tugged the Winchester rifle from its leather boot under his knee. His horse was rearing and skittering in a tight circle so he could not get the rifle up. He knew that he was blocking Harry's line of fire, and that for those long seconds he was completely defenceless, and he swore helplessly, anticipating a rush of dark spearmen out of the broken rock and scrub at the foot of the cliff.

Then he realized there was only one man, and that he was unarmed, and again he yelled at Harry, with even more urgency, for he had heard the clash of the breech block behind him as the American loaded and cocked.

"Hold it! Don't shoot!" The gelding reared again, but this time Ralph jerked it down and then stared at the tall black man who had stepped so silently and. unexpectedly out of the crevice of a fractured granite block.

"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice rasping with the shock, which still screwed his guts into a ball and charged his veins with a quick rush of blood. "Damn you, I nearly shot you." Ralph caught himself, and this time repeated in fluent Sindebele, the Matabele language, "Who are you?" The tall man in the plain leather cloak inclined his head slightly, but his body remained absolutely still, the empty hands hanging at his side.

"What manner of question is that," he asked gravely, "for one brother to ask another?" Ralph stared at him. Taking in the and una head ring on his brow and the gaunt features, scored and riven by the crags and deep lines of some terrible suffering, a sorrow or an illness that must have transported this man to the frontiers of hell itself.

It moved Ralph deeply to look upon that riven face, for there was something, the fierce dark eyes and the tone of the deep measured voice that was so familiar, and yet so altered as to be unrecognizable.

"Henshaw," the man spoke again, using Ralph Ballantyne's Matabele praise name. "Henshaw, the Hawk, do you not know me? Have these few short years changed us so?" Ralph shook his head in disbelief, and his voice was full of wonder. "Bazo, it is not you surely, it is not you? Did you not after all die with your impi at Shanganir Ralph kicked both feet out of the stirrups and jumped to the ground. "Bazo.

It is you!" He ran to embrace the Matabele. "My brother, my black brother," he said, and there was the lift and lilt of pure joy in his voice.

Bazo accepted the embrace quietly, his hands still hanging at his sides, and at last Ralph stood back and held him at arm's length.

"At Shaingani, after the guns were still, I left the wagons and walked out across the open pan. Your men were there, the Moles-that-burrow-under-a-mountain." That was the name that King Lobengula himself had given to Bazo's impi, Izinivukuzane Ezembintaba.

"I knew them by their red shields, by the plumes of the marabou. stork and the headbands of fur from the burrowing mole." These were the regimentals bestowed upon the impi by the old king, and Bazo's eyes turned luminous with the agony of memory as Ralph went on. "Your men were there, Bazo, lying upon each other like the fallen leaves of the forest. I searched for you, rolling the dead men onto their backs to see their faces, but there were so many of them." "So many," Bazo agreed, and only his eyes betrayed his emotion.

"And there was so little time to look for you," Ralph explained quietly. "I could only search slowly, with care, for some of your men were fanisa file." It was an old Zulu trick to sham dead on the battlefield and wait for the enemy to come out to loot and count the kill. "I did not want an assegai between my shoulder-blades. Then the laager broke up and the wagons rolled on towards the king's kraal. I had to leave." "I was there," Bazo told him, and drew aside the leather cloak. Ralph stared at the dreadful scars, and then dropped his gaze, while Bazo covered his torso again. "I was lying amongst the dead men." "And now?" Ralph asked. "Now that it is all over, what are you doing here?" "What does a warrior do when the war is over, when the imp is are broken and disarmed, and the king is dead?" Bazo shrugged.

"I am a hunter of wild honey now." He glanced up the cliff at where the last smoke wisps were blending into the darkening sky as the sun touched the tops of the western forest. "I was smoking a hive when I saw you coming." "Ah!" Ralph nodded. "It was that smoke that led us to YOU-" "Then it was fortunate smoke, my brother Henshaw." "You still call me brother?" Ralph marvelled gently.

"When it might have been I who fired the bullets--" He did not complete the sentence, but glanced down at Bazo's chest.

"No man can be held to account for what he does in the madness of battle," Bazo answered. "If I had reached the wagons that day," he shrugged, "you might be the one who carried the scars." "Bazo," Ralph gestured to Harry to ride forward, this is Harry Mellow, he is a man who understands the mystery of the earth, who can find the gold and the iron which we seek." "Nkosi, I see you." Bazo greeted Harry gravely, calling him "Lord" and not allowing his deep resentment to show for an instant. His king had died and his nation had been destroyed by, the weird passion of the white men for that accursed yellow metal.

"Bazo and I grew up together on the Kimberley diamond fields. I have never had a dearer friend," Ralph explained quickly, and then turned impetuously back to Bazo. "We have a little food, you will share it with us, Bazo. "This time Ralph caught the shift in Bazo's gaze, and he insisted. "Camp with us here. There is much to talk about." "I have my woman and my son with me," Bazo answered. "They are in the hills." "Bring them," Ralph told him. "Go quickly, before darkness, falls, and bring them down into camp." Bazo alerted his men with the dusk call of the francolin, and one of them stepped out of the ambush onto the path. "I will hold the white men at the foot of the hills for tonight," Bazo told him quietly. "Perhaps I can send them away satisfied, without trying to find the valley. However, warn the iron smiths that the kilns must be quenched by dawn tomorrow, there must be no shred of smoke." Bazo went on giving his orders, the finished weapons and freshly smelted metal to be hidden and the paths swept clear of spoor, the iron smiths to retreat along the secret path deeper into the hills, the Matabele guards to cover their retreat. "I will follow you when the white men have gone. Wait for me at the peak of the Blind Ape." "Nkosi." They saluted him, and slipped away, silent as the night-prowling leopard, into the failing light. Bazo took the fork in the path, and when he reached the rocky spur on the prow of the hill, there was no need for him to call. Tanase was waiting for him with the boy carried on her hip, the roll of sleeping-mats upon her head and the leather grain-bag slung on her back.

"It is Henshaw," he told her, and heard the serpentine hiss of her breath. Though he could not see her expression, he knew what it must be.

"He is the spawn of the white dog who violated the sacred places-" "He is my friend," Bazo said.

"You have taken the oath," she reminded him fiercely. "How can any white man still be your friend?" "He was my friend, then." "Do you remember the vision that came to me, before the powers of divination were torn from me by this man's father?" "Tanase," Bazo ignored the question, "we must go down to him. If he sees my wife and my son are with me, then there will be no suspicions. He will believe that we are indeed hunting the honey of wild bees. Follow me." He turned back down the trail, and she followed him closely, and her voice sank to a whisper, of which he could clearly hear every word. He did not look back at her, but he listened.

"Do you remember my vision, Bazo? On the first day that I met this man whom you call the Hawk, I warned you. Before the birth of your son, when the veil of my virginity was still un pierced before the white horsemen came with their three-legged guns that laugh like the river demons that live in the rocks where the Zambezi river falls.

When you still called him "brother" and "friend", I warned you against him." "I remember." Bazo's own voice had sunk as low as hers.

"In my vision I saw you high upon a tree, Bazo." "Yes," he whispered, going on down the trail without looking back at her. There was a superstitious tremor in Bazo's voice now, for his beautiful young wife had once been the apprentice of the mad sorcerer, Pemba. When Bazo at the head of his impi had stormed the sorcerer's mountain stronghold, he had hacked off Pemba's head and taken Tanase as a prize of war, but the spirits had claimed her back.

On the eve of the wedding-feast when Bazo would have taken the virgin Tanase as his first bride, as his senior wife, an ancient wizard had come down out of the Matopos Hills and led her away, and Bazo had been powerless to intervene, for she had been the daughter of the dark spirits and she had come to her destiny in these hills.

"The vision was so clear that I wept," Tanase reminded him, and Bazo shivered.

In that secret cave in the Matopos the full power of the spirits had descended upon Tanase, and she had become the Umlimo, the chosen one, the oracle. It was Tanase, speaking in the weird voices of the spirits, who had warned Lobengula of his fate. It was Tanase who had foreseen the coming of the white men with their wonderful machines that turned the night to noon day, and their little mirrors that sparkled like stars upon the hills, speeding messages vast distances across the plains. No man could doubt that she had once had the power of the oracle, and that in her mystic trances she had been able to see through the dark veils of the future for the Matabele nation.

However, these strange powers had depended upon her maidenhead remaining un pierced She had warned Bazo of this, pleading with him to strip her of her virginity and rid her of these terrible powers, but he had demurred, bound by law and custom, until it had been too late and the wizards had come down from the hills to claim her.

At the beginning of the war which the white men had carried so swiftly to Lobengula's kraal at GuBulawayo, a small band had detached from the main army, they were the hardest and cruel lest led by Bakela the Fist, himself a hard fierce man. They had ridden swiftly into these hills. They had followed the secret path that Bakela had discovered twenty-five years or so before, and galloped to the secret cavern of the Umlimo. For Bakela knew the value of the oracle, knew how sacred she was, and how her destruction would throw the Matabele nation into despair. Bakela's riders had shot down the guardians of the caverns, and forced their way within. Two of Bakela's troopers had found Tanase, young and lovely and naked in the deepest recesses of the cave, and they had violated her, savagely tearing the maidenhead that she had once offered so lovingly to Bazo. They had rutted upon her until her virgin blood splattered the floor of the cavern and her screams had guided Bakela "to them.

He had driven his men off her with fist and boot, and when they were alone, he had looked down upon Tanase where she lay bloodied and broken at his feet. , Then strangely, this hard fierce man had been overcome with compassion. Though he had ridden this dangerous road for the sole purpose of destroying the Umlimo, yet the bestial behaviour of his troopers had weakened his resolve, had placed some burden of recompense upon him.

Bakela must have known that with her virginity torn from her she had lost her powers, for he told her. "You, who were Umlimo, are Umlimo no longer." He had accomplished her destruction without using rifle or sword, and he turned and strode from the dark cavern, leaving her life in exchange for her virginity and the loss of her dark powers.

She had told the story to Bazo many times, and he knew that the mists of time had closed before her eyes and that now they shrouded the future from her, but no man could doubt that she had once possessed the power of the Sight.

Thus Bazo shivered briefly, and he felt the ghost fingers touching the nape of his neck as Tanase went on in her husky whisper.

"I wept, Bazo my lord, when I saw you upon the high tree, and while I wept, the man you call Henshaw the Hawk was looking up at you and smiling!" "They ate cold bully beef straight from the cans, using the blade of a hunting knife to spoon it out, and "passing the cans from hand to hand. There was no coffee, so they washed down the glutinous mess with sun warmed draughts from the felt-covered water bottles, and then Ralph shared out his remaining cheroots with Harry Mellow and Bazo. They lit them with burning twigs from the fire and smoked in silence for a long time.

Close at hand a hyena warbled and sobbed in the darkness, drawn by the firelight and the smell of food, while Further out across the plain, the lions were hunting, sweeping towards the moonrise, not roaring before the kill but coughing throatily to keep in contact with the other animals in the pride.

Tanase, with the child on her lap, sat at the edge of the firelight, aloof from the men, and they ignored her. It would have offended Bazo if they had paid undue attention to her, but now Ralph took the cheroot from his mouth and glanced in her direction.

"What is your son's name?" he asked Bazo, and there was a heartbeat of hesitation before Bazo replied.

"He is called Tungata Zebiwe." Ralph frowned quickly, but checked the harsh words that rose to his lips. Instead he said, "He is a fine boy." Bazo held out his hand towards the child, but Tanase restrained him for a moment with a quiet ferocity.

"Let him come to me," Bazo ordered sharply, and reluctantly Tanase let the sleepy child stagger to his father and climb into his arms.

He was a pretty, dark toffee colour, with a pot belly and chubby limbs. Except for the bracelets of copper wire at his wrists and a single string of beads around his waist, he was stark naked. His hair was a dark fluffy cap and his eyes were owlish with sleep as he stared at Ralph.

"Tungata Zebiwe," Ralph repeated his name, and then leaned across to stroke his head. The child made no attempt to pull away, nor did he show any trace of alarm, but in the shadows Tanase hissed softly and reached out as if to take the child back, then dropped her hand again.

"The Seeker after what has been stolen," Ralph translated the child's name, and caught the mother's dark eyes. "The Seeker after justice that is a heavy duty to place upon one so young," he said quietly. "You would make him an avenger of injustice inflicted before his birth?" Then smoothly Ralph seemed to change to a different subject.

"Do you remember, Bazo, the day we first met? You were a green youth sent by your father and his brother the king to work on the diamond fields. I was even younger and greener, when my father and I found you in the veld and he signed you to a three-year labour contract, before any other digger could put his brand on you." The lines -of suffering and sorrow that marred Bazo's features seemed to smooth away as he smiled, and for a few moments he was that young guileless and carefree youth again.

"It was only later I found out that the reason Lobengula sent you and thousands of other young bucks like you to the fields was to bring home as many fat diamonds as you could steal." They both laughed, Ralph ruefully and Bazo with a vestige of his youthful glee.

Tobengula must have hidden a great treasure somewhere. Jameson never did find those diamonds when he captured GuBulawayo." "Do you remember the hunting falcon, Scipio?" Bazo asked.

"And the giant spider that won us our first gold sovereigns at the Kimberley spider-fights," Ralph continued, and they chatted animatedly, recalling how they had worked shoulder to shoulder in the great diamond pit, and the mad diversions with which they had broken the dreadful monotony of that brutal labour.

Not understanding the language, Harry Mellow rolled in his blanket and pulled the corner of it over his head. In the shadows Tanase sat, still as a beautiful ebony carving, not smiling when the men laughed but with her eyes fastened on their lips as they spoke.

Abruptly Ralph changed the subject again. "I have a son also," he said. "He was born before the war, so he is a year or two older than yours." The laughter dried immediately, and although Bazo's expression was neutral, his eyes were wary.

"They could be friends, as we are friends," Ralph suggested, and Tanase looked protectively towards her son, but Bazo did not reply.