High up among the crags they crouched, like eagles looking forth from an
eyrie, sweeping indeed with eagle-like gaze the vast expanse of plain
which lay in many an undulating roll, outspread beneath.
Three dark forms, long and lithe, destitute of clothing save for the
_mutya_ and a few war adornments in the way of cow-hair tufts, or
feathers. Beside each were several bright, broad-bladed assegais, and
medium-sized shields, just where they had been deposited. Far away in
the distance rose a cloud of dust--a moving cloud of dust.
"_Ou_! the hand of the spoiler sweeps. The dust which it raises floats
away, that which causes it moves on."
A hum of assent greeted this murmured remark, and the eager attention of
the look-out was redoubled. The face of the mountain fell grandly away
in terraced slopes, rows of great krantzes intervening. There was a
glorious feeling of air, and height, and domination from this lofty post
of outlook. Far above, a number of white specks soared and floated
against the blue empyrean. The instinct of the vulture is unerring, and
that instinct had been kept well in practice as regarded this disturbed
region for some time past.
The dust cloud moved onward, drawing nearer, yet still a great way off.
The faces of the watching three were rigid in their eagerness, the eyes
dilated, the nostrils distended like those of a stag snuffing the wind.
Then the one who had spoken, taking a broad assegai from the bundle
which lay beside him, slid, with a serpentine writhe, down from his
coign of vantage, then when the ridge of this was well between him and
the expanse over which he had been watching, he drew himself up in a
sitting posture, and holding the spear so that it pointed vertically
upwards, took one glance at the sun, then twirled the bright blade
slowly, facing down upon the valley beneath. This was done several
times, until an answering gleam appeared far below. The signaller,
satisfied, wormed himself back into his former position on the very
crest of the mountain. They renewed their watch, those human eagles,
their tense, self-contained excitement deepening as the moments fled by,
and it preluded a swoop.
Looking back, to whence had come the answering signal gleam, a maze of
broken valley, interseamed with dongas, lay outspread. Opposite and
beyond this, a further rocky range towered in a crescent wall. A rugged
wilderness, silent, deserted, given over to savage solitude. Yet--was
it?
Rank upon rank they crouched, those dark rows of armed warriors, their
variegated shields and broad assegais lying upon the ground in front of
them. Row upon row of eager, expectant faces; set, intense; the roll of
eyeballs alone giving sign of mobile life, a constrained hum passing
down the gathering as they drank in the impassioned and burning words of
the speaker.
He was a largely-built, thick-set Zulu of a rich copper colour, which
threw out in unwonted blackness the jetty shine of his head-ring. He
held himself with the erect, haughty ease of a king addressing his
subjects, of a despot speaking to those who owned their very lives only
at his will. Yet, he was not the King.
He had begun addressing them in the sitting posture, but as he warmed to
his subject had risen to his feet, and now strode up and down as he
spoke.
"I am nobody. I am a boy. I am a child among the sons of Senzangakona,
the Root of the Tree that overshadows the land, the rise of the sun that
sheds light on the people. It is not I who should be talking here
to-day, Amazulu. _Hau_! even as that Great One foretold, he who died by
`the stroke of Sopuza' the land is splintered and rent. He,
Senzangakona's great son, he whom the whites have taken from us, the
shine of whose head-ring is dulled in his prison--what of him? Not
little by little, but in large cuts his `life' is being rent from him.
Where are they whom he left--they who were as his life? Ha! are they
not given over as a prey to a traitor; the spoiler of his father's
house, the son of Mapita. Who is he? The dog of him who is gone. Who
is Sibepu?"
"_Whau_! Sibepu!" broke from the listeners. "The spoiler of his
father's house!"
"_Eh-he_! The spoiler of his father's house!" echoed the group of
chiefs, squatted behind the speaker.
"From the meanest of the nation," went on the speaker, "the _Abelungu_
have chosen those who should be kings over us. Umfanawendhlela, he who
now sits at the royal kraals on the Mahlabatini. Who is he? Who is
Umfanawendhlela?"
"_Whau_! Umfanawendhlela!" broke forth again the contemptuous roar.
"Yet such as these are the _Abelungu_ now using as their dogs, setting
them on to hunt those before whom they formerly cringed and crawled.
Those of the House of Senzangakona are already hungry. All their cattle
is being taken by these dogs of the _Abelungu_, and with the women of
the Royal House they can do what they will, for have they not already
done so? But behind these sits another dog and laughs. U' Jandone!
Who is Jandone?"
"_Hau_! U' Jandone!"
This time the roar was indescribable in its volume of execration. It
seemed to split the surrounding rocks with the concentrated vengefulness
of its echo. For a few moments the speaker could not continue, so
irrepressible were the murmurs of wrath and hate which seethed through
the ranks of his listeners.
"Who made him a Zulu," he went on, "since he came into the country
white? Who made him rich--rich in cattle, and wives, and power? Who
but him who is gone? But when the storm gathered and the _Abelungu_
invented childish grievances and said `the might of Zulu must be
crushed'--did this one who had come here white to be made black; who had
come here poor to be made rich--did he stand by that Great One's side
and say `This is my father who has made me great. This is my friend, by
whom I am what I am. I hold his hand. His fall is my fall. Did he?'
_Hau_! Jandone!"
"_Hau_! Jandone!" repeated the audience once more in deep-toned wrath
and disgust.
Gloomy lightning seemed to shine from the chief's eyes, as with head
thrown back and a sneer on his lips, he contemplated the humour of the
gathering. He proceeded:
"Our father, Mnyamana, is not here to-day. He is old, and it were
better for him to die hungry at home than in the white man's prison.
But upon him, heavily have the dogs of the white man fallen, upon him,
the valued adviser of two kings. Even now they are eating him up.
But--shall they? Behold," and he threw out a hand.
The assembly, following the gesture, turned. High up on the hillside
something gleamed--gleamed and glittered again and again. It was the
answering signal to those who watched on the mountain crest, and--it was
the second answer.
With a deep, fierce murmur the warriors, gripping their shields and
weapons, sprang to their feet as one man. Again Dabulamanzi waved his
hand.
"In silence," he said. "In silence. So shall we fall upon them the
easier."
In silence, accordingly, the great impi moved forth, no shouting, no
war-song--but all the more terrible for that. It differed from the
state of things prior to, and at the time of the war, in that here were
no regiments--head-ringed men and youngsters marching side by side. But
upon every face was the grim dark look of hate, not merely the eager
anticipation of impending battle, but worse. The fraternal feud is
proverbially the most envenomed. Against no white invader--English or
Dutch--were these going forth but against those of their own kindred and
colour, towards whom they felt exactly as Royalist did towards Roundhead
in a different quarter of the globe three centuries earlier.
Through a long, narrow defile, running round the base of the mountain on
which the outlook was posted, streamed the dark human torrent. On over
each roll of plain it poured. At length it halted on a ridge. Grey
whirling clouds of dust close at hand drew nearer and nearer, and
through them the hides and horns of driven cattle. At the sight a
fierce gasp went up from the impi, and the warriors looked for the word
of their leaders to fall on.
The beasts were driven by a large armed force, though smaller
numerically than this which had come to recapture them.
Those in charge, taken by surprise, halted their men. They had walked
into a wasp's nest, yet were not disposed to climb down without an
effort. So they stood waiting.
They had not long to wait. The impi headed straight for the cattle, and
with a decision of purpose that left nothing to be desired, wedged
between them and their drivers, and headed them off in another
direction. The animals, panic-stricken, began to run wildly; cows with
their calves racing one way, staid oxen, caught with the fever of the
scare, now and then charging their new drivers, but these were seasoned
to that sort of thing, and would skip nimbly out of the way, or roll on
the ground, just in time to avoid the head thrust, while to all, each
and every incident risky or laughable, was a source of infinite sport.
One bull--chocolate-hided, sharp-horned--grew more than a danger, for
with that shrill growling bellow emitted by his kind when partly scared
and wholly angered, he drove his horns clean through a young warrior,
flinging the rent carcase furiously in the air. But this in nowise
detracted from the fun in general. Him however they incontinently
assegaied.
The while a hubbub of voices rose loud through the trampling and
bellowing of the cattle, whose drivers were inclined to show fight.
This was in a measure stilled as the leader of the impi strode to the
fore. As a brother of the exiled king he was too big a man for even the
opposition party to treat otherwise than with a sulky respect.
"_Whou_, Qapela!" spoke Dabulamanzi, confronting the leader of the band
that was driving the cattle. "What is this we see? A fighting leader
of the Nokenke regiment, who slew three whites with his own assegai at
Isandhlwana, now turned white man's dog, now snapping at his absent
king. _Whou_, Qapela!"
"_Whou_! Qapela!" echoed the warriors, in roaring derision, as more and
more came crowding up.
He, thus held up to scorn, a ringed man of middle age, scowled savagely.
It was one thing to be derided by a branch of the Royal Tree, quite
another to be savagely hooted by a pack of unringed boys. It needed but
a spark to set the train alight, to bring on a savage and bloody fight
between the two rival factions.
"No dog of any white man am I, _Ndabezita_," [Note 1] he answered,
gloomily defiant. "I am but fulfilling the `word' of my chief."
"And thy chief? Who is he?" went on Dabulamanzi, his head thrown back,
in the pride of his royal rank as he confronted the man. "U' Jandone?"
"_Whou_! Jandone!" roared the warriors in scathing derision.
"Not so, _Ndabezita_," replied the other, in a cool sneering voice, as
that of one who is about to score. "My chief is a branch of the Royal
Tree; a long branch of the Royal Tree--ah-ah--a long branch. What of U'
Hamu?"
The point was that he had named another brother of the King, an older
one than Dabulamanzi; one of the chiefs under the Wolseley settlement,
who with John Dunn and Sibepu, and one or two more, was actively opposed
to Cetywayo's return.
"Ha! A long branch!" sneered Dabulamanzi. "A branch _cut-off_ from the
Royal Tree. How is that, Qapela?"
"_Whou_! Qapela!" roared the warriors again, pointing their assegais at
him in derision.
"As to `cut-off,' I know not," answered the other, stung out of his
natural respect towards one of the Royal House. "This I know--that that
branch now puts forth the most leaves. The `word' from it was: `Take
the cattle of Mnyamana,' and I have taken them."
"But no further shalt thou take them, dead leaf of the cut-off branch,"
replied Dabulamanzi, "for we have taken them from thee. See. There
they go."
Away--now quite at a distance, the animals were visible, going at a run,
propelled towards the mountain fastnesses by quite a number of men.
This fact, too, Qapela noted, and noted with significance, for it meant
that by just that number of warriors was the opposing impi reduced, thus
bringing it as nearly as possible upon equal terms with his own. He had
lost the cattle--for which he was responsible, and the chief to whom he
did _konza_ was no indulgent master. But what if he were to avenge
their loss? The obligation he would thus lay himself under would far,
far outweigh the mere carrying out of his original orders. He stole one
quick look over his followers. Yes. The thing could be done, if only
he could convey some sort of word or signal that they should strike
immediately and in concert.
But there was with Dabulamanzi's force an old induna named Untuswa, a
scarred old battle-dog whose whole life had been spent in a laughing
acquaintance with Death, by the side of whose crowded experience such a
crisis as this was as the merest child's play; a born strategist,
moreover, whose rapidity of plan had turned the scale of more than one
hard fought and bloody struggle. He, while these amenities were going
forward, had taken but scant notice of them; instead, had let his
observation--the outcome of exhaustive experience--go as to the attitude
of the other side, and also that of his own. With regard to the latter,
a mere breathed word here and there had been sufficient. Warriors had
slipped away unostentatiously from his side--to mingle with the rest--
far and near--and as they went, they, too, carried a word.
Untuswa read Qapela's mind, and Untuswa knew, none better, the supreme
advantage of getting in the first blow. Now he lifted up his voice and
roared in deep sonorous tone, the war-shout of the King's party.
"Usutu!"
Like an answering wave in thunder on an iron-bound coast it was taken up
and rolled through the multitude. The ranks seemed to tighten a moment,
then hurled themselves upon the opposing force. For a few moments there
was deadly work--the tramp of feet, the flapping of shield against
shie|d, the death-hiss--the strident "_I-jji_! _I-jji_!" as the spear
or heavy knob-stick struck home; then Qapela's force, overwhelmed,
demoralised by the suddenness of the onslaught, broke and fled in blind,
scattered confusion, the Usutu impi in hot pursuit. A mandate from
Dabulamanzi, however, recalled this, as far as was practicable. He had
no wish to destroy his own people, any more of them, that is, than was
absolutely necessary, only to show that the King, though an exile, was
still the Great Great One, in whose light they lived, and that his wrath
could still burn far and terrible upon these rebellious ones. But that
mandate could not reach those in the forefront of the pursuit, who,
carried away by the irresistible dash and excitement of it all, were
already far beyond reach of recall. So the chase kept on, not always to
the advantage of the pursuers, for these would often turn--and then it
was as the fighting of a cornered wild animal. Mile upon mile this
fierce running fight went on, until the shades of evening began to
deepen, and then there was just one left, a young man, lithe and fleet
of foot; and he, beset by a relentless score, stumbled, gasping and
exhausted, his breath coming in labouring sobs, into a white man's camp,
to fall, prone, incapable of further movement, nearly across the white
men's fire.
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Note 1. A term of honour accorded to male members of the Royal House.