"Yet it is better to lose an _inkosikazi_, if by that loss you sit in
the seat of a King! Ah, ah! Untuswa; there will be food for the
alligators then."
"Meanwhile they shall have some now. You have lived too long, Gegesa,
_and you know too much_. I trust not that croaking old tongue. This is
the price I pay for thy news--the price it is worth."
So saying, I picked her up by her ragged old blanket where it was
knotted round her, and before she had time to utter a cry, tossed her
clean over the brink of the rock. I heard the splash in the water
beneath, and without troubling to look over, I turned away.
With the blood-wave surging around my brain, I strode quickly onward.
Now the mystery of Lalusini's disappearance was a mystery no more. Any
last hope I might have clung to that she might one day reappear was
shattered. She had died as my first _inkosikazi_ had died, a death of
horror and of blood. _Whau_! but other blood should flow--should flow
in rivers--before many days had gone by. When the King had rid me of
Nangeza I had been well pleased, for her pestilent tongue and evil
temper had gone far towards rendering life a weariness; but I had lived
even longer with Lalusini than with Nangeza, but so far from doing aught
that should cause my love for her to decrease, Lalusini had taken care
that it should grow instead.
By the time I reached my kraal, night had fallen. Entering my large
hut, I called for Jambula the slave who had been with me in the slaying
of the ghost-bull. By birth Jambula was of the Amaxosa, a numerous and
warlike people whose land is to the southward, as you know, _Nkose_.
When a young man his family had been "eaten up" by order of its chief;
and he, narrowly escaping with is life, had at last found refuge with a
tribe of Basuti, among whom we had captured him. And now I knew that if
there was one man upon whose fidelity I could entirely reckon, that man
was Jambula.
Having made sure that none could overhear us, to him now I opened the
plot. His face lighted up with joy as he listened.
"To-morrow, by this time, we shall both be ghosts in the shadow world,
or I sit in the seat of Umzilikazi, and you among the _izinduna_ of this
nation. How like you that, Jambula?"
"If you are dead, my father, I too am dead," he answered. "Not too
soon, either, is it to strike, for my eyes and ears have not been closed
in these days, nor have those of the Great Great One. It is his life or
ours. The time when this place shall awaken hemmed in by the
spear-points of the slayers is but a question of a few nights more or
less."
I believed this to be true, but even if it were not so it would have
made but little difference. The tale told me by old Gegesa had so
inflamed my blood that I could wait no longer. Vengeance, now at once--
now, before it escaped me. I could wait no more.
A little while longer did Jambula and I whisper together. Then softly
and silently we stole forth into the night.