"Then go now, a wanderer once more, Untuswa, but only for a short while.

Besides, it may be that I will find thee but, even among the fierce Bapongqolo, from time to time," she added.

"Why, then, go I forth with joy," I answered. "Farewell, Lalusini.

Delay not to find me out."

She gave me a few things which I might need, food, and a casting-spear or two, and a large new war-shield--I having come forth with but a small dancing shield--and thus once more fared I forth a wanderer, a fugitive from the parent nation, even as from its offshoot. Verily it seemed as though I were to find no rest.

Now the undertaking before me was, to a man of my experience and familiarity with peril, no very great one, for by using ordinary caution I could always travel un.o.bserved. I avoided the kraals of men, moving mostly at night. Twice I saw in the distance bodies of armed warriors who might or might not have been in search of me; but these I easily eluded, though delayed thereby; and the third evening after parting with Lalusini I was well in among the wildest solitudes of the Ngome forest.

And they were solitudes, _Nkose_. The great slopes and spurs of the mountains were covered with dense forest surging up in seas of foliage against the immense rock walls of the Lebombo mountains. Below, chasms and deep ravines through which the mountain streams whimpered, half hidden beneath the decaying vegetation and rotting tree-trunks of ages.

And of animal life, of bird life, of insect life--_whau_! the air was never still. By day the black chasms boomed with the hoa.r.s.e bark of the dog-snouted baboons, and at night thundered from cliff to cliff the roar of the lion. Birds chattered and piped, and the buzz of insects hung ever upon the air, but of man and his habitations never a sign.

"Now," thought I, "where are these people of whom Lalusini spoke? for these solitudes are not altogether to my mind. I like better not to dwell alone," But still I wandered through unpeopled forests, seeing no sign of man, I grew uneasy. There was abundance of game, easily slain, too. Still I desired converse.

This, however, came my way at last, and in right startling manner did it come. I had turned the corner of a great rock, where the track I had been following opened into a gra.s.sy glade. Suddenly there sprang up right at my feet several men fully armed, who, with a loud shout, called on me to halt.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE REFUGEES.

"An _impi_ sent by Dingane," was my first thought, as I ga.s.sed upon the fierce countenances and the spears poised aloft with threatening flash.

"Who art thou--and whence?" said he who appeared to be the leader, a tall man and savage of mien.

"Rather, who are ye?" I answered, with another question, affronted by the insolent tone employed by the speaker.

"See these," he answered swiftly. "Speak or die! You are one man, and these are several."

"Yet I have fought with several before this day, O Unknown," I retorted, with a swift movement, throwing up my shield in defence, at the same time backing towards the rock, so that they could not get round me. So I stood ready for a merry fight, for the leader alone would have taken up all my attention, so tall and strong was he--and there were others.

To my surprise they did not come on. The leader again spoke.

"Once more, who art thou? He who wanders in the retreat of the Bapongqolo must needs give an account of himself."

"_E-he_!" a.s.sented the others.

Then I lowered shield and weapons at once.

"I am Untuswa, the son of Ntelani. Perchance ye have heard of him, ye who are refugees."

By the look which they exchanged I knew they had heard of me. Then the leader said:

"What seek you here, Untuswa, for in truth that is a name which is known?"

"I seek a refuge among the people who are in refuge," I said.

"Why then, thou art welcome, Untuswa," he replied. "I am Sifadu, the son of Kona, and I wielded a sharp spear in the ranks of the Imbele-bele, of which I was a captain. But Tola, that jackal-sp.a.w.ned cheat, did name my father at a witch-finding, and he, being old, died the death of the black ants; but I and the remainder of his house escaped--and here we are."

"Tola will name no more, Sifadu," I said. "The k.n.o.b-sticks of the King's slayers have put that form of pleasure beyond his reach."

"He is dead, then! _Haul_ I am glad, and yet not, for one day I had promised myself the delight of having him enticed here that he might die the death my father suffered through him. I would pay ten cows as the price of that pleasure--yes, willingly." And the look on the face of Sifadu was such that it was perhaps as well for Tola in the long run that he had died the swift and painless death of the k.n.o.bstick.

Thus we conversed, Sifadu and I, and as we journeyed I told him and the others a great deal of what had happened; of the invasion of the Amabuna, and how we had destroyed many of them. They had heard something of this, but I, who had taken part in it, was able to tell them everything. But what they especially wanted to know about was the rumour of plotting in favour of Mpande. Of this, however, I could not tell them much, because I knew but little myself.

The princ.i.p.al place of the Bapongqolo consisted not of one large kraal, but a number of small ones; and so scattered were these, and so carefully hidden, away in the dense forest which covered the slopes of a vast hollow or bowl, that it would be well-nigh impossible to strike them all at one blow; and to this end was such concealment planned.

Impossible, too, would it have been for any considerable number of men to have penetrated the hollow without their advance having been long since known to the inhabitants, so dense and rock-strewn were the approaches; and, indeed, all such were under the observation of small outpost kraals, which served the purposes of pickets.

I gathered that these refugees were counted by hundreds. They were of all ages, from quite old men down to boys. Most of them, however, were middle-aged men in their prime; but whether the fact of being refugees kept them ever on the alert, all had a quick, ready, and fearless look, together with fine and well-knit frames, that stamped them as a warrior clan of no contemptible strength. And to Sifadu all seemed to look up as to a recognised chief.

Of this Sifadu I knew not quite what to make. He was friendly at first, but as time went by he seemed to look at me with jealous and suspicious eyes, as though he thought that a man of my standing and prowess would hardly be content with the position of one among many, wherein he was right, perhaps. Of one thing, however, I was certain. Did I or any other man desire the chieftainship of these outlaws Sifadu would first have to be dead.

For the present, however, I had no such thoughts. I was content to dwell quietly and unmolested, and await the turn events might take. So, as time went by, I seemed to have become as one of the Bapongqolo.

Together we hunted the wild game of the forest--together we made descents in search of plunder into the Swazi country or the lands of the Amatonga, or levied tribute from the kraals lying beyond the outskirts of our own fastnesses; and so feared were we that none thought of resistance or retaliation.

"Of a truth, Untuswa, the day might come when Dingane himself would be glad to join us," said Sifadu to me, as we were returning from one of these forays. "With our help, even we might save him his seat. Then should we not be among the highest of the nation? Then would there not be some who might groan aloud because the son of Kona had returned?"

Such a thought as this had been in my own mind, but I desired not to foster it in that of others, at least, not until I had determined upon my own plans; so to Sifadu I replied lightly on the matter, treating it as of no importance.

Lalusini had kept her word, and twice had arranged that we should meet and hold long converse together. But on the second of these occasions her news was great. The Amabuna had crossed the Tugela in great force, intending to march upon Nkunkundhlovu. There had been a tremendous battle, but the army of Dingane had defeated them and had driven them back; and but for their horses would have stamped them out entirely.

Then the English at Tegwini had undertaken to interfere in this quarrel, and had crossed the Tugela with a large _impi_ of Amakafula. These, however, got no further than the bank of the Tugela, for the King's warriors made meat of that _impi_ until the river ran red with their blood; and, in his wrath and disgust at this breach of faith on the part of the whites at Tegwini, Dingane sent an _impi_ there to eat them up, too. _Whau_! and they would have been eaten up but that they took to the water--took refuge on a ship that was there--for these whites, _Nkose_, had no business to interfere in a quarrel which concerned them not. They were not of the blood of the Amabuna, and they had ever been treated as friends by the house of Senzangakona since the great Tshaka had allowed them the use of the lands on which they then dwelt. So they were rightly served.

Now all these tales of war and of great battles fired my blood, for I would fain have been in them; yet here I was, hiding away as a fugitive.

But when I would have boldly returned, craving only that Dingane would allow me to wield a spear in the ranks of his troops, Lalusini dissuaded me. The hostility of Tambusa and Umhlela burned as hot against me as ever, and indeed I had fled not any too soon. She bade me wait. She herself was high in favour with the King by reason of the victories which had attended the Zulu arms, for she had foretold them.

Not without risk did I thus meet Lalusini. I could not reveal the real relationship between us, and the suspicions of the fierce Bapongqolo once fairly aroused, I might be slain suddenly and without warning, and no opportunity given me of explanation or self-defence. Indeed, after the first time, I thought I noticed a frost of suspiciousness in the converse of those people towards me as we sat around our fires at night.

But the second time something so unlooked for happened that it gave them all something else to think about.

Lalusini had finished telling me all there was of news when, of a sudden, her manner became strange and suspicious.

"We are being watched, Untuswa," she said quietly.

"Watched? Why then, it will be bad--ah, very bad--for the watcher."

And hardly had the words escaped me than I darted from her side. I hurled myself through the thickness of the bush, but something was already crashing through it away from me. I made out the form of a man.

"Now, stop!" I cried--a casting a.s.segai poised for a throw. "Stop! or I cleave thee to the heart."

I was about to hurl the spear fair between the shoulders of the fleeing man--who was now not many paces in front--when he stopped suddenly. I went at him. He turned round and faced me, a glare of hate and fury in his eyes that seemed to scorch--to burn. And I--_Whau_! I stood as one suddenly turned to stone, the uplifted a.s.segai powerless in my stiffened grasp. For the face was that of a ghost--the dreadful glare of hate and fury that paralysed me was upon the face of a ghost. I was gazing upon one whom I had seen slain, whom my own eyes had beheld clubbed to death by the King's slayers--Tola, the chief of the witch doctors.

We stood for a moment thus, motionless, I gazing upon the horrible form of one I knew to be dead, as it stood there, shadowed in the gloom of the trees. Then, slowly raising an arm, the voice came, deep and hollow--

"Retire--or I put that upon thee which shall blast and wither thy heart and turn to water thy courage; which shall change the most valiant of fighting-men into the most cowardly of women."

Awful as were the words, the effect upon me was not that intended. He had better have kept silence, for now I knew him to be alive, and I sprang upon him. He had a spear, and struck furiously at me with it; but I turned the blow, and then we closed. He fought and bit and kicked, and, powerful as I was, the lithe and slippery witch doctor for long defied my efforts to secure him, for I was anxious to take him alive. At last it seemed I should be obliged to kill him, when something was dropped over his head which, the next moment, was rolled round and round in a thick covering of stuff. It was Lalusini's blanket. She had come to my aid just at the right time. We had no difficulty in securing him now, and with strips cut from his own skin cloak we bound his hands firmly behind him, and his feet. Then we removed the blanket.

"Greeting, Tola!" I said. "I thought thou wert dead; but I had forgotten, a great _iza.n.u.si_ such as thou could not die, which is well, for not far off is one who longeth to welcome thee."