"THE LION'S DEN."
The principal kraal of the Igazipuza lay in a great natural crater,
surrounded by cliff-crowned heights. Like all the Zulu kraals it wore
an excessively neat and symmetrical appearance in its perfect circular
formation; the dome-shaped huts, which could not have numbered less than
five hundred, standing between the double ring fences, which latter rose
as high as a man's chin, and being constructed of the thorniest of
mimosa boughs tightly interlaced, presented a formidable
_chevaux-de-frise_ to whosoever would cross or break through them. It
was a large and imposing kraal, as became the residence of an
influential chief, the head quarters of a powerful clan.
The situation of the place had evidently been chosen with no
insignificant eye to strategy. Shut in by its amphitheatre of heights,
the bushy hollow wherein it lay was accessible from one side alone, and
that could only be approached by an exposed and toilsome climb up a long
and rugged slope. A sentinel posted on the heights around could descry
the advance of an enemy for miles, and all the fighting force could
concentrate their efforts on the one accessible point. Of course a
couple of field-pieces planted on the nearest cliff could have banged
the place to rubbish in half an hour, but to foemen armed as themselves,
or even with rifles, this stronghold of the Igazipuza was a very
formidable fastness indeed, and not far short of impregnable.
All these points did Dawes and Gerard take in as, upon the afternoon of
the third day following their compulsory enterprise, the waggons creaked
and groaned behind their panting, toiling spans, up the rugged acclivity
aforesaid, whither their live stock, urged on by its very willing if
self-constituted drivers, had already preceded them in a now vanishing
cloud of dust. They noticed, too, on gaining the ridge whence they
could look down upon the great kraal lying a mile or so before and
beneath them, that the valley was one of considerable area, and though
bush-clad was green and grassy. There was yet one thing more they
noticed. Rising abruptly from the bush, about a mile and a half in the
rear of the kraal, was a conical tooth-shaped rock, the more noticeable
because it seemed to have no business to be there at all. It was a kind
of excrescence on the natural formation of the ground, which was there
smooth. Yet this strange pyramid, with its precipitous cliff-face, thus
shot up abruptly to a height of nearly a hundred feet.
Their cogitations on this and other matters were interrupted suddenly,
and in a manner which was somewhat alarming. From the tree-clad
hillsides arose the same wild roaring shout which had preceded the
massacre of the unfortunate Swazi runaways, and they beheld charging
down upon them from either side a band of armed men, shaking their
shields and assegais by way of adding to the strength and hideosity of
the uproar.
"All this dancing and bellowing is getting just a trifle thin--eh,
Ridgeley?" said Dawes, with a touch of ill-humour, as the savages came
surging round the waggons, and amusing themselves by yelling at, and now
and again goading, the already panting and terrified oxen. The Swazis,
who had not dared leave the sides of their white protectors, turned grey
with fear. This was too much like what had preceded the slaughter of
their companions.
But the Zulus in the present instance confined their aggression to mere
boisterous noise. And then the kraal in front seemed suddenly in a
turmoil. Heads could be seen peering over the palisades, and another
body of warriors came swarming from its gates. These advanced, marching
in regular orderly column, to meet the wild uproarious crowd which was
swaying and surging around the slowly progressing waggons; and as they
approached they began to sing. The burden of their song might be
translated in this wise--
"Ho! the Lion's teeth are sharp,
They bite, they tear;
And the land is white with bones
Round the Lion's lair.
Lo! the prey comes home of itself
To the Lion's den,
Where the Lion's cubs grow fat
On the blood of men.
Ha, ha, ha!
Grow fat on the blood of men!"
The repetition of this ferocious refrain was, under the circumstances,
anything but reassuring; the fell imagery of it only too alarmingly
plain. Were they not indeed walking of themselves right into the
"lion's den"--the lair of this savage and freebooting chieftain whose
very name meant lion in the Zulu language! However, there was nothing
for it but to preserve a cool and unconcerned demeanour, as the singing
warriors drew near; and thus marshalled, amid an indescribable din, the
shrill chatter of women and children, the clamourous yelping of a
hundred curs, mingling with the rattle of shields and assegai hafts, the
rumble of tramping feet and the deep-toned, measured war-chant of the
warriors, our two friends made their entrance into the Igazipuza kraal,
after a fashion which, as Gerard remarked, was a cross between a
procession to the scaffold and a Caesar's triumph.
Dawes had wanted to leave the waggons outside, but this his escort--or
captors--would not hear of. They must all enter, had urged the latter.
To act otherwise would be to make the reception invalid, maimed,
unlucky. They could go out again afterwards if they liked, and Dawes
for his part sincerely wished they might.
Large as it was, the open space in the centre of the kraal, was nearly
filled up with the two waggons and spans of oxen, besides their cattle
and small stock which had been driven into it. A bush had now fallen
upon the swarming throng, for Dawes had intimated his desire immediately
to see the chief; and heads were bent forward in eager curiosity, and
voices were hushed to whispers as, escorted by a group of ringed men, he
and Gerard, leaving their waggons in charge of Sintoba and the other
driver, but still inspanned, were ushered upon that errand.
The chief's hut was no larger than the others, nor was there anything to
distinguish it from them, except perhaps an open space in front of it.
It faced, too, a gate in the inner kraal, and through this our two
friends were marshalled accordingly.
The chief, Ingonyama, was a large, stoutly built Zulu of about fifty.
He had a shrewd, intelligent face, and his shaven head, surmounted by
the inevitable _isicoco_ or ring, rendered his high broad forehead
almost commandingly lofty. His jaw was square and resolute, but there
was a shifty look in his somewhat deep-set eyes--a look of cunning which
was uncomfortably suggestive of treachery. His nails, after the custom
of Zulus of rank, were enormously long and claw like. Such was the
outward appearance of the chief of the redoubted Igazipuza.
He was seated on a dried bullock-hide in front of his hut. A large
white war-shield was held above his head to shelter him from the sun.
Beside him sat his favourite _induna_, and in the mighty frame and evil
countenance of this man, our two friends recognised the rival hunter who
had so inopportunely stepped between them and their game a few days
previously, Vunawayo.
Dawes, knowing in such matters, and, moreover, keenly alive to all that
passed, observed that the head-ringed men, who had marshalled them into
the presence of the chief, sainted the latter with almost royal
acclamation, although they did not give the "_Bayete_," [Note 1], a fact
which, taken with the white shield held above Ingonyama's head--a royal
custom--struck him as significant. He, himself, merely greeted the
chief in the ordinary way, "_Saku bona_."