Meanwhile Gerard, with a perfect agony of dread and apprehension at his
heart, was speeding with his young Zulu allies in the direction of "The
Tooth." Though they could hardly hope to gain it unobserved, yet by way
of neglecting no precaution, they crept along as much as possible under
cover of the bush. Fortunately, the approaches were well-known to
Gerard, who was thus able to guide his party straight to the point by
which alone it was accessible.
"See, there!" exclaimed Nkumbi-ka-zulu, suddenly, touching his arm.
"_Au_! the wizards!"
They had got the face of the great rock pyramid almost in section.
Looking up, Gerard beheld with a shudder the hanging bodies, which he
had first seen from a distance. They were very near now, quite near
enough to make out the features of the tortured victims, who, however,
appeared to be dead, for they hung motionless against the cliff.
Shuddering again, Gerard recognised in the drawn, ghastly countenances
those of the three Swazis.
There were still only the three, yet from this he augured no good thing.
That horrible stake on the apex of the mount--he could not see that.
Did it, too, hold its tortured writhing victim? What had they done with
John Dawes, with Sintoba, Fulani, and the other natives? And then he
began to hope that for some purpose they might yet have been spared. If
so, it might not be too late.
"Now, Nkumbi," he whispered eagerly. "Up we go! This is the side. I
will be first at the top; do you keep close behind me. There cannot be
many up there. The place will not hold more than a few, and besides,
all their fighting force will be busy with Sobuza."
As they drew near the summit of the gruesome rock of death, a strange,
unwonted stillness reigned. Could it be that the place was deserted?
Had the savages already accomplished their horrible work and gone away?
Gerard's heart beat like a hammer as he climbed the last bit of steep
rocky path, and he could hardly see. His brain seemed to swim.
Suddenly a strange, rumbling, scuffling sound met his ears, the sound as
of a struggle. Mingling with it were quick, deep-toned ejaculations. A
wave of a great relief surged round his heart, for he recognised one of
the voices. He was not, then, too late.
In a moment he gained the summit, and this was what he saw.
In the centre of the depressed hollow, arrayed in all the grotesque and
hideous paraphernalia of a witch-doctor, the great lion's skin draping
him from head to foot, stood Ingonyana, surrounded by half a dozen
warriors. Beside him rose the grim, pointed stake, empty now, and ready
to receive another victim. And the victim was there. Struggling in the
grasp of four athletic savages, struggling with all the might of a
powerful and sinewy frame, bound as he was, straining every nerve and
muscle, was a white man. They had passed a _reim_ round his neck, and
were trying to draw his head down almost to his knees, in a word, to
truss him like a fowl, preparatory to impaling him upon that hideous
stake. And in this man, Gerard recognised at a glance John Dawes.
So intent were all upon the execution of their barbarous task, that the
approach of the party took place absolutely unheeded. To fling himself
upon the warriors who were straggling with his friend was to Gerard the
work of a fraction of an instant. To empty his revolver into the head
of one, and the body of another was that of the same iota of time. Then
as the remaining two with a yell of surprise started back to seize the
weapons, which they had dropped while engaged in their straggle with the
prisoner, they were speared by the Zulus who had followed close behind
Gerard.
"_Usutu_! Death to the _abatagati_!" thundered Nkumbi-ka-zulu, hurling
a casting assegai full at the chief.
Ingonyama, however, caught it deftly on his shield, and charged forward
upon the thrower, followed by his six remaining warriors. Bending the
air with their ferocious blood-shout, the Igazipuza, having recovered
from their momentary surprise, strove now to bear back the assailants,
to press them over the cliff's brow. But the blood of the young
Ngobamakosi warriors was up. Not an inch did they give way, and
numerically the odds were in their favour. Hand to hand--slashing,
parrying, thrusting--they fought.
So swift was the attack--so hard pressed by the ferocious and desperate
freebooters was Gerard and his allies, that the former had not even so
much as a moment of time wherein to release Dawes. He could only stand
before him to protect him with his life. Then suddenly seizing his
opportunity, he slipped his rifle between the shoulders of two of the
striving Ngobamakosi, and hardly taking aim pressed the trigger.
Ingonyama leaped in the air, and fell heavily forward, the blood pouring
from a small round hole in his forehead.
"_Au_! Between the eyes has his life been let out!" cried
Nkumbi-ka-zulu, unconsciously echoing the words of the dead chief
himself, uttered so prophetically over the lion's skin which he still
wore.
And, remembering the words, despair was in the hearts of the bystanders;
but despair to the intrepid, almost fanatical Igazipuza meant only a
fresh access of desperation. So far from the fall of their chief
inspiring them with dismay, it only nerved them to resistance more
stubborn, more ferocious than ever.
Three out of the six were already slain, one almost disabled from
wounds. Three likewise of the Ngobamakosi were down--so far man for
man. The remaining three, pressed back inch by inch, were already at
the cliff's brow. As for asking quarter that was the last thing in the
world they would ever have dreamed of. Gerard now found the opportunity
to cut the _reims_ which bound his friend, and thrust his revolver into
the hand of the latter.
Hardly had he done so when a terrific uproar arose beneath--the royal
shout of _Usutu_. On it came, surging upward, and immediately there
sprang upon the apex of The Tooth some five or six warriors. The red
circle showed them to be enemies, the panting chests and hacked shields
and the quick eager way in which they turned to glance back as soon as
they had gained the summit, showed them to be fugitives. A gasp of
surprise escaped the two white men as they caught sight of the foremost.
It was Vunawayo.
"Ha! _Umlungu_!" cried the latter, as he sighted Gerard, "I told you we
should meet again on the point of The Tooth! And we have."
There was something so terrific, so appalling in the very aspect of the
gigantic savage, as covered with blood, his evil features working in a
most fiendish and malignant grin, he darted like lightning upon Gerard,
that even the latter might have been excused if he had felt momentarily
unnerved. Unluckily, too, his foot slipped, so that his rifle bullet,
instead of meeting his assailant full in the chest, only hummed past the
latter's ear. He was at the mercy of his formidable foe. Parrying with
his shield the blow aimed at him by Gerard's dabbed rifle, Vunawayo made
a furious stab. But Gerard, avoiding it, gripped his assailant by the
legs and threw him. The agile and powerful Zulu, however, was half up
in a moment, and the straggle became a hand-to-hand one. No assistance
either could Dawes or the Ngobamakosi give, all their efforts being
fully taxed to hold their own against this new accession of strength to
the side of their enemies.
"_Au_, _'mlungu_! I told you our meeting would be a long one," growled
Vunawayo, between his set teeth, as they rolled nearer and nearer to the
brow of the cliff. Gerard the while felt every muscle in his powerful
young frame cracking, strained as it was to prevent the savage from
freeing the hand which held the assegai. Moments seemed years--nearer
and nearer to the fatal brink the combatants rolled. Then the fierce
and desperate savage, suddenly jerking free his left wrist, seized his
adversary by the throat.
Then Gerard felt that his end had come. His eyes seemed squeezed out of
his head. The whole world was spinning round with him. A tug--a final
effort--his opponent had got him to the edge of the height. He was
going--both were going--
The air rang with the deep-throated "_Usutu_!" as Sobuza and his
followers came swarming over the edge of the summit. Gerard was
conscious of a spout of warm blood over his face, for the moment
blinding him; of the relaxing grip of his adversary; of a plunge and
scuffle as the body of the latter crashed over the brink--of the grasp
of powerful hands dragging him back to life and safety. Then, half
choked, his brain swimming, he rose to his feet, and took in what had
happened--what was happening--the last act in the suppression of the
redoubtable freebooting clan.
It all took place in a moment. The summit was alive with warriors, with
tossing shields and bristling weapons, all pressing forward upon one
man.
He was standing fronting them like a stag at bay--standing on a
projecting pinnacle of rock, balancing himself right over the abyss. He
was a man of large, fine stature, and his eyes flashed with the elation
of a heroic courage, as covered by his great shield, and a broad assegai
flourished aloft in his right hand, he defied his slayers to approach.
"Ho, hunting-dogs of the king, here is your quarry! Come and seize it,"
he shouted, in deep, mocking tones. "What, afraid? The king's _impi_
afraid of one man! What a sight for the spirit of Tyaka! Ha! I am the
last of the Igazipuza, and the whole of the king's _impi_ fears me--
fears me!" he repeated, in a kind of long-drawn chant--a very
death-song, in fact.
Now the summit sloped down to the pinnacle of rock whereon the man
stood. To attack him hand-to-hand was certain death, for his object was
plain--to seize and drag into the abyss with him whoever should
approach, and thus to die true to the traditions of his order, an
enemy's life in his hand. Assegais thrown at him from above he only
laughed at, parrying them easily with his shield. Sobuza and his
warriors were beside themselves with helpless rage. The jeering
laughter and contemptuous defiance of the man goaded them to madness.
But how to get at him? The chief was too proud to admit himself beaten
by asking the aid of the firearms of his white allies, whereas they, in
sheer admiration of the man's desperate intrepidity, forebore to use
them. Even John Dawes, notwithstanding his recent rough treatment and
narrow escape from the most barbarous of deaths, could hardly bring
himself to fire upon this sole survivor of the race which had so
abominably ill-used him.
But the difficulty solved itself unexpectedly. The savage, seeing
Gerard pushing his way to the front--seeing, too, the rifle in his hand,
mistook his intentions. If they were not going to purchase the pleasure
of taking his life at the price of losing one of their own, they should
not have it for nothing.
"Ho, cowards!" he roared with flashing eyes. "Ho, cowardly dogs who
fear one man. Go, tell your king I spit at his head-ring! Igazi--pu--
za!" And as the last long-drawn note of the ferocious war-shout of his
tribe escaped his lips, he turned and sprang out into empty air, and a
dull, heavy thud and the clink of metal upon stones rising upward to the
ears of those above, told that the last of the Igazipuza warriors had
died even as those who had gone before him had died--fierce, stubborn,
formidable to the end, but unyielding.
A gasp of relief, admiration, awe, went up from the spectators of this
powerfully tragic scene. Then they turned to leave the mount of death.
"_Whau_! these are _abatagati_ indeed!" quoth Sobuza. "But they are
right valiant fighters."
"And this, my father, what shall we do with it?" said one of the
warriors, designating the body of Ingonyama, which lay just as it had
fallen, covered with the great lion's skin. "Shall we not place it on
`the point of the Tooth,' that even the very birds may behold the fate
of the enemies of the Great Great One?"
"The king's orders did not say that," replied Sobuza, who was not free
from motives of class-feeling. "Ingonyama was a chief, and a brave man,
and now he is dead. Let him lie in peace, for was he not a chief?"
"What of this?" said Dawes, touching the lion's skin.
"We want it not," answered Sobuza. "It, too, looks like _tagati_. See!
The life was let out of it and its wearer by the same hole."
"That's a fact," said Dawes. "But, if you're so particular, we are not.
We are going to have this--eh, Ridgeley?" And he plucked the lion's
skin from the body of the dead chief.
The Zulus stared, then shrugged their shoulders. A white man might do
all kinds of things which were not lawful for themselves, wherefore they
did not think so very much of the act.
As they descended from the dreadful hill of slaughter, Dawes narrated
all that had befallen him since Gerard had left--his jeopardy in the
kraal, and how he had held Ingonyama at the point of his revolver, and
that within a few yards of his dancing warriors; then his bold attempt
at trekking away, the shooting of the councillor, Sonkwana, the fight,
and his own recapture. Nothing on earth had saved him from the
frightful fate to which he had been adjudged, but the fact of the
lateness of the hour--that and the arrival of the king's _impi_ at dawn.
It was too dark to put him to death that evening, and so he had spent
the night a close prisoner, with so many hours of silence and darkness
before him wherein to look forward to the terrible torture which awaited
him the next day.
Before dawn, however, had come tidings that the king's _impi_ was
marching upon the place, and he was dragged forth into the midst of the
whole horde of exasperated barbarians, clamouring like wolves for his
blood. But it had been decided to send emissaries to the king's
_induna_, and meanwhile he was taken to the summit of The Tooth.
"It's a mercy you turned up when you did, Ridgeley," he concluded.
"Five minutes later, and I'd have been kicking on that stake. Faugh!"
Then Gerard, in turn, related his own experiences. Dawes listened
attentively--gravely.
"It was a lucky day for both of us when you dragged that same Sobuza out
of the water, over the Umgeni Falls, and a lucky day for me when
Cetywayo took it into his head that it was time to suppress the
Igazipuza," he said seriously. "And it was a lucky day, too, for me the
day I ran against you knocking around Maritzburg, down on your luck; for
I don't stick at telling you, Ridgeley, that there's not a chap in forty
would have carried through that blockade-running business with the pluck
and dash and, above all, cool soundness of judgment you showed. And but
for that, where should I have been?"
Gerard reddened.
"Have you quite done making a speech, Dawes?" he said, laughing
confusedly. "Because, if so, let's talk about other things. What has
become of Sintoba, and the rest of them?"
Dawes's countenance fell.
"Hang me if I know," he said. "From the time they strapped me up I saw
no more of the people. The Swazis were hung over here, poor devils, as
you saw; but I didn't see that. It was done just before they lugged me
up. I'm afraid though these brutes have made mincemeat of them."
"What are we going to do, now?" said Gerard. "I suppose we can trek
home again."
"Do? Why, just this. We'll go to the king's kraal and claim
compensation for the loss of our time and liberty and all the funk we've
been put in. And we'll get it, too."
"Hadn't we better let well alone?" suggested Gerard. "We have got our
stock back. Would it not be best to inspan quietly, and trek right away
out of the country?"
"Perhaps it would be best in this instance," allowed Dawes, after a
moment's pause; "though I had not intended to do things by halves. By
the way, I did show an error of judgment the last time I decided to
trek. I ought to have waited quietly until the upshot of your
undertaking came off. Yes, I made a mistake that time. It was a direct
challenge to them, so to speak. But I say, Ridgeley, what a yarn we'll
have to spin to old Bob Kingsland, when next we see him. Why, he'll
vote us a brace of the biggest liars in Natal."
Gerard laughed. Then, at the thoughts suggested by the mention of Mr
Kingsland, he subsided into silence. Not long, however, was he suffered
to enjoy his own thoughts, for as they reached the foot of the pyramid a
considerable hubbub greeted them.
The remainder of the king's _impi_ had come up. In the midst of this,
hustled, pushed, occasionally kicked, and threatened at every step by a
multitude of spears, were three unfortunate natives.
"Kill them!" "Cut them to pieces!" "They are Igazipuza!" "We saw them
in the fight!" "They have washed off their red wizard's mark!" were
some of the tumultuous shouts which went up from the crowd.
"_Amakafula? Hau_! Only listen to that! No. They are Igazipuza,
cowardly dogs, not like the rest, who were brave!" roared the savages,
who, having tasted what should have been enough blood, clamoured for
more. The lives of the wretched men seemed not worth a moment's
purchase. An exclamation escaped both Dawes and Gerard simultaneously.
They elbowed their way right into the excited crowd.
"They speak truth, _amadoda_!" cried Dawes. "They are not Igazipuza.
They are my servants."
The Zulus stared, then fell back. The delight wherewith the Natal
natives hailed their master, who had come to their aid in what they
imagined a most critical time, beggars description.
"How did you escape, Sintoba, and where have you been hiding?" said
Dawes, wonderingly.
Then Sintoba proceeded to explain how he and Fulani and the boy had been
put into a hut together, but, unlike their master, had been left
unbound, and fairly well treated in general. But something they had
overheard led them to attempt their escape, and in the confusion which
had followed daring the mastering of the warriors to resist the invasion
of the king's troops, and the despatching of the women and cattle to a
place of safety, they had succeeded in slipping away and hiding among
the rocks on the opposite side of the hollow to that whereon the battle
had taken place. Here they had been discovered by the victorious
_impi_, and being taken for Igazipuza, would have been massacred on the
spot but for the intervention of the sub-chief, Matela, who suggested
that they should be led before Sobuza, who, with his advance guard, was
then in pursuit of Vunawayo and a few surviving fugitives.
"_Whau_, Jandosi! Your _Amakafula_ have had a narrow escape from the
spears of our people," said Sobuza, quizzically. "Almost as narrow a
one as you yourself had from the bite of The Tooth of the Igazipuza.
And now let us stand beneath the rock of death and see if these wizards
have been able to take to themselves wings and fly down unhurt."
All misgivings on that score, however, was soon set at rest. At the
foot of the cliff, shattered, shivered into a horrible mangled mass, lay
the body of Vunawayo--a great gash over the heart, showing where it had
received the stab which had, as by a hair's breadth, saved Gerard from
being dragged over by the fierce and desperate savage. At this ghastly
evidence of the terrible fate from which he had so narrowly escaped,
Gerard shuddered.
"_Ha_! Jeriji!" said Sobuza, with a grim smile. "My broad _umkonto_
[the short-handled stabbing spear] has done its work well, as well as
your fists did among those Amakafula dogs near the Umgeni. That was a
great day; but this has been a greater one."
"It has indeed, Sobuza," answered Gerard. "And so yours was the stroke
that saved my life? Well, we are very much more than quits now, at any
rate."
Close beside the shattered remains of Vunawayo, lay those of the warrior
who had leaped of his own accord from the summit, choosing rather to die
by his own act than that his enemies should have the satisfaction of
boasting that they had slain him.
"The wizards have died hard, and we have had a right merry fight," said
Sobuza, turning away. "With more men we could have crushed them
quicker, but then we should not have had so grand a fight. I think,
Jeriji, that the Great Great One knew this when he sent but a thousand
men, for in such blood-letting do we keep our spears sharp in these
peaceable times."
As they rejoined the _impi_, it became evident that an altercation of
some kind was going forward; the parties thereto being a young unringed
man and an Udhloko warrior.
"It is mine, I say!" vociferated the former, who was being backed up by
more and more of his friends. "It is mine! I won it!"
"You won it!" was the contemptuous reply of the _kehla_. "_Ha_!
_umfane_ [`Boy,' i.e. an unringed man]. I have it. I took it. Come
now, you, and take it!"
"I will," shouted the other in answer to this direct challenge. And
supported by a gathering number of his friends he rushed upon the ringed
man. The latter, however, seemed equally well supported. Spears waved
threateningly as the parties confronted each other. It seemed as if
civil strife was going to follow upon the extermination of the
legitimate enemy.
"Peace!" cried Sobuza, sternly. "What it this, that the king's
hunting-dogs snarl against each other?"
"This, father," appealed the young warrior. "That gun is mine. I won
it fairly. Jeriji promised it. He said, `If you get near Jandosi when
we attack, if you are the first to reach his side, that double gun shall
be yours. I promise it.' That was the `word' of Jeriji. And was I not
the first to reach his side, I and my kinsmen? _Whau_! There is
Jeriji. Ask him, my father. Ask him if such was not his word?"
"Nkumbi-ka-zulu speaks every word of the truth, _induna_ of the king,"
said Gerard. "I did promise him the gun on those terms, and he has won
it fairly."
Thus called upon to adjudicate, Sobuza heard what the other side had to
say, and the fact that the warrior in whose possession it now was had
only picked up the gun instead of having taken it from an enemy in
battle went far towards simplifying matters. It had been thrown away
early in the conflict by Vunawayo, who, not understanding firearms, had
been so violently kicked at the first discharge that he had elected, and
wisely, to fight with such weapons as he did understand. So the chief
decreed that Nkumbi-ka-zulu had fairly earned the weapon, and it was
handed over to him forthwith, to the huge delight of the young warrior
and his friends, and as Gerard promised to make some sort of present to
the man who had been dispossessed, the dispute was settled to the
satisfaction of all parties.
"Pooh! Don't mention it!" declared Dawes, in reply to Gerard's
apologetic explanation of how he had come to pledge away what was not
his property. "You could not more completely have hit upon the right
thing to do. If you had been as near that beastly stake as I was,
Ridgeley, you'd think you had got off dirt cheap at the price of a gun,
I can tell you. Besides, are we not in the swim together and jointly?
That young scamp, Nkumbi! Well, he has earned it fairly this time, more
so than by jockeying us over it as he tried to do before. Eh, Nkumbi?"
And Dawes translated his last remark for the benefit of the young
warrior, who, with his confederates, received it with shouts of laughter
and great good humour.
The open plain in front of the kraal was one great sea of stirring life
as the _impi_ came up. Thither were gathered all the cattle of the
Igazipuza, upwards of a thousand of them, and numbers of sheep and
goats. Among these squatted or moved dispirited groups of women,
sad-faced and resigned; even the children seemed to have lost their
lightheartedness, and cowered, round-eyed with awe and apprehension.
All had been collected and assembled there by a portion of the king's
force told off for the purpose, and were to be taken as captives and
spoils to the king's kraal; and these were started off thither there and
then.
But before this was done an earnest conference had been held between the
two white men and the Zulu leaders. After all that had taken place,
said John Dawes, he and his comrade were extremely anxious to trek away
home. It would be highly inconvenient to travel all round by Ulundi,
though on another occasion they hoped to pay a special visit to the
king. Meanwhile they had now recovered their cattle and trek-oxen, and
they would like to leave the Zulu country for the present. But in
consideration of the valuable aid rendered, at any rate, by Gerard, to
the king's troops, and further as some compensation for the detention
and peril they had undergone, at the hands of those who were, after all,
the king's subjects, he proposed that Sobuza should award them a share
in the cattle seized from the Igazipuza.
The chief took snuff and began to deliberate. He was not sure whether
he could do this upon his own responsibility, he said. Recovering their
own property was one thing, claiming an award out of the "eaten-up"
cattle seemed very much another. How many did Jandosi think would meet
his requirements?
Dawes replied that seventy-five head about represented a moderate
compensation. Sobuza, however, did not receive the proposal with
enthusiasm. Finally it was agreed that sixty head should be allowed, on
the express stipulation that no further claim should be made upon the
king or the Zulu nation either by the two white men or any of their
native followers. As for driving them, he, Sobuza, could not assist
them. He was responsible to the king for every man in the _impi_, and
could not upon his own responsibility send any of the king's subjects
out of the Zulu country. The difficulty, however, might be met by
pressing into the service two or three of the Igazipuza boys who were
young enough to have escaped the massacre of the fighting men and old
enough to understand cattle-driving. So, having obtained their share of
the spoil, Dawes and Gerard bade a cordial farewell to Sobuza and the
Zulu _impi_, and inspanned, and once more the crack, crack of the whips
and the shouts of the drivers, Sintoba and Fulani, resounded cheerily as
they started for home.
But the errand of the king's troops was not quite completed. The hollow
had been effectively scoured in search of fugitives hiding away, but
none such had been found. Save the few who had broken through, only in
order to make their last stand upon the summit of the Tooth, none had
thought of escape. All had fallen where they had stood, fighting
desperately to the last.
"Now will we put in the fire to this nest of wizards!" cried Sobuza
aloud.
Hardly had he given the signal, than smoke was seen rising from the
huts, gathering in dense volumes, and, lo, from four different points
simultaneously, bright flames broke forth, and as the whole huge kraal,
now one vast sheet of leaping, devouring fire, gave forth in
uninterrupted salvo its heavy crackling roar, there went up from the
ranks of the king's warriors, mustering in crescent formation to watch
the completion of their errand of retribution, the thunder of a fierce
war-song of victory and exultation.
"As lightning we smote them,
Where, where are they now?
The sons of the lightning,
The wizards of thunder?
Where, too, is their dwelling,
Their cattle, their cornfields?
"The bolt fell upon them,
The thunder-cloud smote them;
The might of `The Heavens'
In fury it burned them--
It smote and it burned them--
Its ruin destroyed them!
"The wizards are scattered
In blood and in ashes;
The roar of the Lion
In thunder pursued them;
The praise of the Lion
His children re-echo;
The praise of the Lion,
The Lion of Zulu,
The Lord of the Nations!"
The flames sunk low, sunk into red heaps of ashes pierced with bright
and glowing caverns. A dense cloud of smoke overhung the hollow; and
now the king's _impi_, marching in companies, was moving up towards the
ridge. The two waggons, with their full spans of oxen creaking up the
rocky way, had already gained the entrance to the hollow, and their
owners, riding on horseback, for both the steeds had been recovered too,
paused for a moment on the ridge to look back. Their peril and
captivity was at an end. They were being brought out in something like
a triumphal procession. Far on in front, the dust was rising from the
great herd of cattle and the crowd of captives. Behind, below, lay the
gruesome and blood-stained hollow. The thunder of the war-song echoed
from the slopes, and the rhythmic movement of the lines of shields of
marching warriors was a fitting accessary to the lurid background of the
picture, the amphitheatre of cliffs, "The Tooth," the pyramid of Death
in the centre, its dismal burdens still dangling against its face, and
below, the great smouldering circle of blackening ashes, while the dense
smoke cloud mounting to the heavens in the grey and murky noontide, as
from the crater of a volcano, proclaimed to all, far and near, that the
king's justice had been executed, and that the power of the dreaded,
indomitable, bloodthirsty Igazipuza had now become a thing of the past.