CHAPTER NINE.

"TO SLAY THEE, SON OF MATYOBANE."

The great kraal, Kwa'zingwenya, slept. All was dark and still as we drew near it, Jambula and I. We could make out dimly in the starlight the immense circle of domed huts within their ringed fences, but not so much as the spark of a distant fire showed that any within were awake.

Treading cautiously, we took our way round to the upper end of the great circle.

At every gate bodies of armed guards were posted, yet in the darkness two men, stealthy, silent as serpents, glided by unnoticed--no dog even was roused to give warning of their approach. Two men, alone. Success, and on the morrow the nation would hail a new king. Failure, and the lives of these two, and of all their kith and kindred, would be taken mercilessly.

Having reached our point we set to work. Twig by twig, thorn by thorn, we began to breach the thick p.r.i.c.kly fence; long and silently we worked until the hole was large enough for the body of a man to creep through.

But it was done at last, and I stood within the _isiG.o.dhlo_.

Jambula was to remain outside. If all went well, that is, if he saw or heard nothing the night through, he was to enter himself shortly before dawn, and having stopped up the hole from the inside, was to await my orders. If I failed--and that he would not be long in learning--he was to return at full speed to my kraal, and warn the people there to flee at once for their very lives--to flee both fast and far--for it would not be long before the slayers were on their track.

Were my movements actuated by ambition alone, _Nkose_, then indeed my heart might have begun to fail me. Here was I, in the dead of night, all unbidden, within the sacred precincts of the _isiG.o.dhlo_. To be found there was death--were I the highest in the nation--death by impalement, or some other form of lingering torment. But now the thoughts engendered by such knowledge availed not to daunt me. The spirit of Lalusini, agonised and b.l.o.o.d.y, rose ever before my eyes, beckoning me onward, and my one thought was how soon I might bury my spear in the heart of her slayer.

But for my spear, here before me, was work already. From round one of the huts a man appeared, so suddenly as to collide with me in the darkness, had I not quickly stepped aside. Immediately I struck--and struck home. The broad blade had cleft his heart, and breathing only a soft sigh he sank motionless--being stone dead. I bent over his face, and recognised one of the _izinceku_, or body-servants of the King. Of these I knew there were two on watch at night. I had yet to reckon with the other.

Now I stood motionless, and held my breath, listening. I was among the huts of the royal women, and there, but twenty paces distant, was that of the King. For arms, I had but a single broad-bladed a.s.segai, the gift of Umzilikazi himself, as I have told you, _Nkose_, in a former tale; not even a shield, for such would but enc.u.mber me if it came to a close hand-to-hand struggle. My own craft and quickness were to be as a shield.

Two steps at a time, treading softer than any cat, I gained the outside of the large hut. Peering round I saw what I expected. Right across the door lay the body of a man. It was the other _inceku_.

He was sleeping. I could hear his soft regular breathing. But before I could enter that door he must exchange his sleep for the sleep of death.

He was lying on his back, his face turned upward to the stars, his body filling almost the whole width between the outside screen and the door itself. To reach him I could hardly hope without some slight sound of a scuffle. I flattened myself on the ground, and so crept noiselessly along his side.

_Whau_! but again the blade went home. Right under the fifth rib it glided, and the red blood flowed forth warm upon my hand. This one, too, died without a struggle.

Pausing again, I listened. All was still inside the hut. I began to cut the thong fastenings of the wicker door. What if Umzilikazi, experienced warrior as he was, awakened by the small amount of noise I had caused, were standing ready for me, waiting in the darkness with a.s.segai uplifted to plunge the broad blade in between my shoulders as I crept in through the low doorway. Then the thought came to me that by reason of his very security, hemmed around with guards, the sleep of the King would be sound and unsuspicious. The fastenings were now cut, and grasping the wicker door firmly, I let it down noiselessly upon the floor of the hut.

There was another screen inside which I had forgotten. Peering around this I saw that the interior was not in darkness. The smouldering embers of a fire glowed in the hollow in the centre of the floor, and by its indistinct light I could make out the King, asleep among a pile of blankets against the thatch wall.

But in a moment he started from his sleep and sat upright.

"Ha! Who is that?" he said. Then, recognising me, he cried furiously, "Ha, Untuswa! Thou dog, daring to invade my privacy. Are we threatened from without, or why art thou here?"

"_Thou_ art threatened from within," I answered jeeringly. "I have come to slay thee, son of Matyobane." And I sprang upon him.

But not so easily was my purpose of vengeance to be fulfilled.

Umzilikazi, the warrior and leader of warriors while I was yet a boy, the founder and strong ruler of a new nation, was not so easily to be overcome, although surprised in the midst of sleep. Avoiding the stroke I aimed at him with my a.s.segai, he seized my right wrist and held it in a grasp of iron, and for a moment thus in the half darkness we grappled.

Indeed, I know not why he refrained from shouting aloud for a.s.sistance, knowing my bodily strength and prowess as a fighter, unless it were that his old warrior instincts moved him to add to the terror of his name by overthrowing so formidable a foe in single strife. And then it was too late, for with my left hand I seized his throat and gripped it until his very eyes protruded, choking back any sound he might then fain have uttered.

"Thy life shall pay for thy breach of faith with me," I snarled. "Ha, ha! Where is Lalusini?" And my grasp on his throat tightened.

But then I saw another form rise from the heap of blankets and disappear swiftly through the door of the hut. I had not reckoned on the presence of any of the King's wives; and I knew that I was lost, even before I heard the loud, shrill cry for help that rang out upon the night.

At that moment the sides of the doorway were nearly rent asunder, as the armed guard swarmed in. But, as this happened, Umzilikazi's grasp upon my wrists relaxed, and he fell heavily to the ground. At the same time a strange, sweet odour filled the air, half stupefying me.

"Slay him, the traitorous dog!" I cried, imitating, as well as I knew how, the voice of the King. "Slay him where he lies."

In another moment half a dozen spears would have transfixed the prostrate form, but just then, either by chance or design, one of the armed guard kicked the red embers into a momentary glow. The light fell full upon the face of Umzilikazi.

"_Whau_!" cried the guards, leaping in alarm, their a.s.segais arrested in mid air. "It is the King!"

Then I saw that my plot had failed. Swift--swift as the lightning flash--I stabbed the warrior nearest the door, and, gliding through the latter, but a very few steps brought me to the thorn fence. No time had I to seek the hole by which I had entered. Gathering my legs under me I leaped. Right over the high stockade I flew like a buck, and once on the further side, I ran--ran as I had never ran in my younger days when I was the King's messenger.

And as I ran, keeping on fast and far throughout the night, I noticed that there was no hubbub in the great kraal behind. This meant that I had certainly failed to kill the King. But what had made him drop thus suddenly? Whatever it was it had been the saving of my own life, for only to the momentary diversion caused by my imitating Umzilikazi's tone did I owe it that half a dozen blades had not transfixed me then and there. And now I noticed that the same strange, sweet, stupefying odour, though much fainter, was with me as I ran. Instinctively I clutched the _muti_ bag hanging to my neck. _Whau_! It was open. Half of it had been torn away, but from what was left proceeded the odour.

Now I saw. Now all stood clear. The bag had contained some stupefying scent. In our struggle it had been torn open, and Umzilikazi's face coming against it he had fallen senseless. He was in my hands.

Lalusini's death would have been avenged, and I on the morrow would have proclaimed myself King, and supported my position by force of arms if need be; whereas now I was a fugitive, without home or nation.

Umzilikazi still lived, and would pursue me with untiring and relentless purpose; and, worse than all, Lalusini was unavenged.

_Still_ unavenged, should I not have said? for as I fled a new thought came into my mind. One plan of vengeance had failed, another might not; and, _Nkose_, if you are thinking, as I see you are, what kind of vengeance a nationless fugitive, fleeing for his very life, could hope to compa.s.s against a mighty king sitting at the head of a warrior nation, I can only answer that it was as a nationless fugitive I could best hope to compa.s.s that vengeance, as you will see. Anyhow, though my scheme had failed, Lalusini's _muti_ had availed to save my life--that, too in the direst extremity. For what purpose, then, had my life been saved, but to carry out that scheme of vengeance by some other means?

When the dawn broke, I had already placed a great distance between myself and Kwa'zingwenya, and now the most perilous part of my flight began. The kraals of our own people were scattered about the land, and did any inhabiting these catch so much as a glimpse of me, the pursuers already on my track would not be long in finding me. I dared not lie hidden during the day, for, long as it really was, the distance between myself and Kwa'zingwenya was far too short. Well I knew Umzilikazi would cover the land with searching parties, and that many leaders of these would pay with their lives for failure to discover me. No more deadly crime had been committed since our nation was a nation. I had offered violence to the King's person; had attempted the life of the Great Great One, and only by the merest accident had foiled to take it.

The offence of the conspiration of Ncwelo's Pool was an easily pardonable one compared with mine.

Carefully I travelled throughout the day. I could see the kraals of our people both near and far, and now and then parties of people themselves, but of the pursuers nothing as yet. Fortunately the ground was broken and bushy, and I was able to avoid observation. For arms I had but one a.s.segai, no blanket to cover me from the night chills, and no food.

You will be wondering, _Nkose_, how it was that so experienced a campaigner as myself should have made no sort of preparation for this flight by storing provisions and necessaries in some place of concealment where I could readily take them up. But the reason lies in the fact that flight had not come into my plan at all. When I had started in upon it my desperate enterprise offered two alternatives-- success or death--in the attempt. That a third alternative--flight-- might be open to me I had never for a moment contemplated; wherefore, here I was in very evil case.

I managed to pluck some ears of green corn from a garden unperceived, and this sustained me as I devoured it; for in those days we could live for a long time on very little food, and but little rest. By the following evening I had gained the foot of the mountain range called _Ink.u.me_, somewhat to the eastward of the Place of the Three Rifts, where our great battle was fought and won--won for us chiefly by the magic of Lalusini.

"Ah, ah!" I growled to myself, shaking my a.s.segai in the direction whence I had come. "This nation has doomed itself in taking the life of her through whom its own life has been preserved."

Now just as the sun touched the rim of the western world, his last gleam caused something to flash and shine. Ha! The glint of spears! _I_ ought to know it. And in the clear light that succeeded I could make out a considerable body of armed men.

They were yet a great way off, but were coming towards me, not as though straight from Kwa'zingwenya, but by a roundabout way. A search party, of course. And now I thought gladly how I had been seen by none--though of this I could not make altogether certain. But I would not linger here. Darkness fell and the night was starry and still. Up and up, higher and higher I climbed, intending to place the whole mountain range between me and the Amandebeli nation by sunrise; but I was somewhat weary, and the ascent was rough and very steep. As I drew near the summit the night wind blew chill, singing through the long gra.s.s like the wailings of countless ghosts, and strange cries and howlings would float up from the mountain sides. But nothing cared I for ghosts now; my chief thought was to avoid falling over cliffs and into chasms.

But when I had reached the summit of the range, as I thought, the stars grew dim, and, in a moment more, were hidden altogether. A white mist was creeping up from the further side, veiling everything. This was bad, for the most experienced traveller is as a little child in a thick mountain mist; and it was quite as likely as not that by continuing to travel I might turn round unknowingly and thus walk straight back upon the spears of those who came after. No! I must halt until it became clear again; and, at any rate, if I were delayed, the same would hold good of my pursuers, unless, indeed, the northern side of the mountains remained clear. This would give them such a long start that they would soon come up with me, in which case--goodnight!

It was time I decided to halt, _Nkose_. A puff of cold air coming _upward_ warned me to pause in the act of making a step. The swirl and movement of the air lightened the thickness a little. And lo! I was standing on the very brink of a black chasm.

Its depth I could not estimate, but it looked bad. I was not unacquainted with these mountains, and I knew there were clefts which seemed to go down into the very heart of the world. But I saw something else. Away on the one hand rose a great rock, and around it, along the lip of the chasm, a narrow path seemed to run.

Now a new thought struck me. This might lead to one of the cave dwellings of those old tribes who long ages ago had inhabited those mountains. If so, no better hiding-place could I find, and immediately I started to make my way along the ledge path.

_Whau, Nkose_, I like not to recall that dread journey. That way, at first only broad enough for one man to travel, soon narrowed until a monkey could hardly have found foothold on it. Before me a great tongue of slippery rock face against which, and with arms extended, I had to flatten myself; behind, the unknown depths of that awful chasm. It seemed as though ghosts and witches sung in my ears in the dank breaths of the white mist, as though in the fitful puffs of the night wind hands were stretched forth to claw me down. Then, fortunately, the projecting rock tongue ended, and lo! I had gained a flat surface about twice the length of a man. This sloped inward, a narrowing tunnel, with a strange sudden twist just before it ended; and now my heart leaped within me, for no better hiding-place could I have lighted upon. Chilled, and wet, and weary, I crept into the narrowest end of the hole, and hardly had I lain me down than I fell into a deep, sound slumber.

When I awoke, it seemed that dawn had already begun to lighten the world, for I could make out the rock-walls of my sleeping place. Well, I would see, at any rate, what sort of hiding this place promised to afford. I crept to where the cave widened sufficiently to allow me to stand upright, and then, as I turned the corner, amazement was my portion, and a growl escaped me, which boded ill for him who had caused it, for I had run right against the body of a man.

He grappled with me in a moment, seizing my wrist before I could bury my a.s.segai in his body, and speaking quickly and eagerly. We were perilously near the edge of the chasm, for in my advance I had borne him backward. Then, as suddenly, my grasp of him relaxed, and his of me; for, in the fast lightening dimness of dawn, I recognised the face of my faithful slave, Jambula, the Xosa.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE FAITH OF A SLAVE.

"Greeting, my father," he exclaimed, when we had stared at each other for a moment in silence. "_Au_! but it is well that none of those who come on behind me were in my place now."