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He brooded awhile, for, as I knew, this was a sore subject with him, one of which he would rarely talk. Although he escaped himself, Quatermain had lost friends on that fatal field. He went on:

To return to old Magepa. I had known him for many years. The first time we met was in the battle of the Tugela. I was fighting for the king's son, Umbelazi the Handsome, in the ranks of the Amawombe regiment--I mean to write all that story, for it should not be lost.[2] Well, as I have told you before, the Amawombe were wiped out; of the three thousand or so of them I think only about fifty remained alive after they had annihilated the three of Cetewayo's regiments that set upon them. But Magepa was one who survived.

I met him afterwards at old King Panda's kraal and recognised him as having fought by my side. Whilst I was talking with him the Prince Cetewayo came by; to me he was civil enough, for he knew how I chanced to be in the battle, but he glared at Magepa, and said:

"Why, Mac.u.mazahn, is not this man one of the dogs with which you tried to bite me by the Tugela not long ago? He must be a cunning dog also, one who can run fast, for how comes it that he lives to snarl when so many will never bark again? _Ow!_ if I had my way I would find a strip of hide to fit his neck."

"Not so," I answered; "he has the king's peace and he is a brave man--braver than I am, anyway, Prince, seeing that I ran from the ranks of the Amawombe, while he stood where he was."

"You mean that your horse ran, Mac.u.mazahn. Well, since you like this dog, I will not hurt him"; and with a shrug he went his way.

"Yet soon or late he will hurt me," said Magepa, when the Prince had gone. "U'Cetewayo has a memory long as the shadow thrown by a tree at sunset. Moreover, as he knows well, it is true that I ran, Mac.u.mazahn, though not till all was finished and I could do no more by standing still. You remember how, after we had eaten up the first of Cetewayo's regiments, the second charged us and we ate that up also. Well, in that fight I got a tap on the head from a kerry. It struck me on my man's ring which I had just put on, for I think I was the youngest soldier in that regiment of veterans. The ring saved me; still, for a while I lost my mind and lay like one dead. When I found it again the fight was over and Cetewayo's people were searching for our wounded that they might kill them. Presently they found me and saw that there was no hurt on me.

"'Here is one who shams dead like a stink-cat,' said a big fellow, lifting his spear.

"Then it was that I sprang up and ran, I who was but just married and desired to live. He struck at me, but I jumped over the spear, and the others that they threw missed me. Then they began to hunt me, but, Mac.u.mazahn, I, who am named 'The Buck' because I am swifter of foot than any man in Zululand, outpaced them all and got away safe."

"Well done, Magepa," I said. "Still, remember the saying of your people, 'At last the strong swimmer goes with the stream and the swift runner is run down.'"

"I know it, Mac.u.mazahn," he answered, with a nod, "and perhaps in a day to come I shall know it better."

I took little heed of his words at the time, but more than thirty years afterwards I remembered them.

Such was my first acquaintance with Magepa. Now, friends, I will tell you how it was renewed at the time of the Zulu war.

As you know, I was attached to the centre column that advanced into Zululand by Rorke's Drift on the Buffalo River. Before war was declared, or at any rate before the advance began, while it might have been and many thought it would be averted, I was employed transport-riding goods to the little Rorke's Drift station, that which became so famous afterwards, and incidentally in collecting what information I could of Cetewayo's intentions. Hearing that there was a kraal a mile or so the other side of the river, of which the people were said to be very friendly to the English, I determined to visit it. You may think this was rash, but I was so well known in Zululand, where for many years, by special leave of the king, I was allowed to go whither I would quite unmolested, that I felt no fear for myself so long as I went alone.

Accordingly one evening I crossed the drift and headed for a kloof in which I was told the kraal stood. Ten minutes' ride brought me in sight of it. It was not a large kraal; there may have been six or eight huts and a cattle enclosure surrounded by the usual fence. The situation, however, was very pretty, a knoll of rising ground backed by the wooded slopes of the kloof. As I approached I saw women and children running to the kraal to hide, and when I reached the gateway for some time no one would come out to meet me. At length a small boy appeared who informed me that the kraal was "empty as a gourd."

"Quite so," I answered; "still, go and tell the headman that Mac.u.mazahn wishes to speak with him."

The boy departed, and presently I saw a face that seemed familiar to me peeping round the gateway. After a careful inspection its owner emerged.

He was a tall, thin man of indefinite age, perhaps between sixty and seventy, with a finely-cut face, a little grey beard, kind eyes and very well shaped hands and feet, the fingers, which twitched incessantly, being remarkably long.

"Greeting, Mac.u.mazahn," he said. "I see you do not remember me. Well, think of the battle of the Tugela, and of the last stand of the Amawombe, and of a certain talk at the kraal of our Father-who-is-dead"

(that is, King Panda), "and of how he who sits in his place" (he meant Cetewayo) "told you that if he had his way he would find a hide rope to fit the neck of a certain one."

"Ah!" I said, "I know you now; you are Magepa the Buck. So the Runner has not yet been run down."

"No, Mac.u.mazahn, not yet; but there is still time. I think that many swift feet will be at work ere long."

"How have you prospered?" I asked him.

"Well enough, Mac.u.mazahn, in all ways except one. I have three wives, but my children have been few and are dead, except one daughter, who is married and lives with me, for her husband, too, is dead. He was killed by a buffalo, and she has not yet married again. But enter and see."

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So I went in and saw Magepa's wives, old women all of them. Also, at his bidding, his daughter, whose name was Gita, brought me some _maas_, or curdled milk, to drink. She was a well-formed woman, very like her father, but sad-faced, perhaps with a prescience of evil to come.

Clinging to her finger was a beautiful boy of something under two years of age, who, when he saw Magepa, ran to him and threw his little arms about his legs. The old man lifted the child and kissed him tenderly, saying:

"It is well that this toddler and I should love one another, Mac.u.mazahn, seeing that he is the last of my race. All the other children here are those of the people who have come to live in my shadow."

"Where are their fathers?" I asked, patting the little boy (who, his mother told me, was named Sinala) upon the cheek, an attention that he resented.

"They have been called away on duty," answered Magepa shortly; and I changed the subject.

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Then we began to talk about old times, and I asked him if he had any oxen to sell, saying that this was my reason for visiting his kraal.

"Nay, Mac.u.mazahn," he answered, in a meaning voice. "This year all the cattle are the king's."

I nodded and replied that, as it was so, I had better be going; whereon, as I half expected, Magepa announced that he would see me safe to the drift. So I bade farewell to the wives and the widowed daughter, and we started.

As soon as we were clear of the kraal Magepa began to open his heart to me.

"Mac.u.mazahn," he said, looking up at me earnestly, for I was mounted and he walked beside my horse, "there is to be war. Cetewayo will not consent to the demands of the great White Chief from the Cape"--he meant Sir Bartle Frere. "He will fight with the English; only he will let them begin the fighting. He will draw them on into Zululand and then overwhelm them with his _impis_ and stamp them flat, and eat them up; and I, who love the English, am very sorry. Yes, it makes my heart bleed. If it were the Boers now, I should be glad, for we Zulus hate the Boers; but the English we do not hate; even Cetewayo likes them; still he will eat them up if they attack him."

"Indeed," I answered; and then, as in duty bound, I proceeded to get what I could out of him, and that was not a little. Of course, however, I did not swallow it all, since I suspected that Magepa was feeding me with news that he had been ordered to disseminate.

Presently we came to the mouth of the kloof in which the kraal stood, and here, for greater convenience of conversation, we halted, for I thought it as well that we should not be seen in close talk on the open plain beyond. The path here, I should add, ran past a clump of green bushes; I remember they bore a white flower that smelt sweet, and were backed by some tall gra.s.s, elephant-gra.s.s I think it was, among which grew mimosa trees.

"Magepa," I said, "if in truth there is to be fighting, why don't you move over the river one night with your people and cattle, and get into Natal?"

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"I would if I could, Mac.u.mazahn, who have no stomach for this war against the English. But there I should not be safe, since presently the king will come into Natal too, or send thirty thousand a.s.segais as his messengers. Then what will happen to those who have left him?"

"Oh, if you think that," I answered, "you had better stay where you are."

"Also, Mac.u.mazahn, the husbands of those women at my kraal have been called up to their regiments, and if their wives fled to the English they would be killed. Again, the king has sent for nearly all our cattle, 'to keep it safe.' He fears lest we Border Zulus might join our people in Natal, and that is why he is keeping our cattle 'safe.'"

"Life is more than cattle, Magepa. At least you might come."

"What! And leave my people to be killed? Mac.u.mazahn, you did not use to talk so. Still, hearken. Mac.u.mazahn, will you do me a service? I will pay you well for it. I would get my daughter Gita and my little grandson Sinala into safety. If I and my wives are wiped out it does not matter, for we are old. But her I would save, and the boy I would save, so that one may live who will remember my name. Now, if I were to send them across the drift, say at the dawn, not to-morrow, and not the next day, but the day after, would you receive them into your wagon and deliver them safe to some place in Natal? I have money hidden, fifty pieces of gold, and you may take half of these and also half of the cattle if ever I live to get them back out of the keeping of the king."

"Never mind about the money, and we will speak of the cattle afterwards," I said. "I understand that you wish to send your daughter and your little grandson out of danger, and I think you wise, very wise.

When once the advance begins, if there is an advance, who knows what may happen? War is a rough game, Magepa. It is not the custom of you black people to spare women and children, and there will be Zulus fighting on our side as well as on yours; do you understand?"

"_Ow!_ I understand, Mac.u.mazahn. I have known the face of war and seen many a little one like my grandson Sinala a.s.segaied upon his mother's back."

"Very good. But if I do this for you, you must do something for me. Say, Magepa, does Cetewayo _really_ mean to fight, and if so, how? Oh yes, I know all you have been telling me, but I want not words, but truth from the heart."

"You ask secrets," said the old fellow, peering about him into the gathering gloom. "Still, 'a spear for a spear and a shield for a shield,' as our saying runs. I have spoken no lie. The king _does_ mean to fight, not because he wants to, but because the regiments swear that they will wash their a.s.segais, they who have never seen blood since that battle of the Tugela in which we two played a part; and if he will not suffer it, well, there are more of his race! Also he means to fight thus," and he gave me some very useful information; that is, information which would have been useful if those in authority had deigned to pay any attention to it when I pa.s.sed it on.

Just as he finished speaking I thought that I heard a sound in the dense green bush behind us. It reminded me of the noise a man makes when he tries to stifle a cough, and frightened me. For if we had been overheard by a spy, Magepa was as good as dead, and the sooner I was across the river the better.