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This state of affairs lasted for some seven months. The old man gradually grew weaker, but he did not die. Of course his condition quite precluded the idea of our leaving Babyan Kraals till all was over.
His first move was towards Babyan's stronghold, Babyan being one of the great Matabele chiefs a chief great in the glorious days of Lobengula and who now occupied the central and important impi in the Matopos.
The baby Harry, as he was afterwards named, was a fine healthy child, and I was lucky in getting a respectable native woman, whose husband had been killed in the fight with the baboons, to accompany me as his nurse. Slowly, and followed for a distance by all the people, I trekked away from Babyan Kraals.
When the pass was reached which led into the valley held by Babyan the column was prepared for attack, the advance force being under the command of Baden-Powell. The guide almost jumped with joy, he says, when he spotted the enemy's fires. The fight was to begin.
Here on the western side of the great peak a bay had been formed in the mountain, which might have measured eight hundred or a thousand yards across by three-quarters of a mile in depth. At the back of this indentation the sheer cliff rose to the height of several hundred feet, and behind it and above it the great Babyan Peak towered up towards the heavens.
All my prophecies to you have come true, Macumazahn, and this one shall come true also. I tell you that you shall return to Babyan Kraals and shall not find me. I tell you that you shall journey to a further land than Babyan Kraals and shall find me. Farewell!" and he took a pinch of snuff, turned, and went. Of my journey down to Natal there is little to tell.
But I am now so rich that it is not worth while to move in the matter. The cousin is dead, his son is in possession, so let him keep it. Once, and once only, did I revisit Babyan Kraals.
Presently I reached the place. There, overgrown with grass, were the burnt ashes of the kraals, and there among the ashes, gleaming in the moonlight, lay the white bones of men. Now it was clear to me. The settlement had been fallen on by some powerful foe, and its inhabitants put to the assegai. The forebodings of the natives had come true; Babyan Kraals were peopled by memories alone.
But next morning it was gone, and I found that the natives, hearing of the event, had taken the corpse and thrown it to the vultures with every mark of hate. Such, then, was the end of Hendrika. A week after Hendrika's death I left Babyan Kraals. The place was hateful to me now; it was a haunted place. I sent for old Indaba-zimbi and told him that I was going. He answered that it was well.
And when all was said and done I did not like this tale of the presence of Hendrika with countless hosts of baboons. So I went in to Stella, and without saying a word to her of the baboon story, told her I had been thinking matters over, and had come to the conclusion that it was our duty to follow her father's instructions to the letter, and leave Babyan Kraals at once.
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