"You will give out that you are tired of a useless search, that you are
exhausted and intend to sleep for three days, and you will pretend to
have drunk too much of the strong waters. So shall Ukozi's eyes be
deceived."
"But Jan Boom, you and Tom are the only people on the place," I urged.
"U' Tom? _Hau_! Ukozi's eyes and ears are everywhere," was the
enigmatical answer.
"And if my horse is lame how shall I use him?"
"You would not use him in any case," was his answer. "The sound of a
horse's hoof travels far at night, that of a man's foot, not. We walk."
"Walk? Why then the place must be quite near."
"Quite near it is, Iqalaqala," slipping into rather an unwarrantable
familiarity in addressing me by my native name, but this didn't exercise
me you may be sure. "Quite near, but--nowhere near the snake pool.
Quite the other way. You will take the nephew of Nyamaki with you."
"Ah! And--what of Umsindo?"
"Ha! Umsindo? He is a good fighting bull--but then he is a blundering
bull. Yet we will take him, for his strength will be useful. For, we
will take Ukozi alive."
"That will not be easy, Jan Boom. And then--just think, how much easier
it will be to kill him."
"Yet we will do it. We will take him alive. You were asking but now,
_Nkose_, what other motive I had in helping you," he answered, with a
dash of significance.
"Ah!"
"So we will take Ukozi alive. Is that to be?"
"Most certainly, if possible. But will it be possible? He is sure to
fight. He will have people with him of course."
"Two, at the most. We had better take them alive too, if we can. It
will make things worse for Ukozi. But to no one living save to the two
we have named will you by word or hint give knowledge of what I have
told you. To do so will mean certain failure."