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They would never hear nor understand his book, but if he would instruct them in the use of the musket he was welcome to stay. Dingarn pronounced, "I will not overrule the decision of my indunas;" but, probably looking on the white man as a mine of presents, he politely invited Gardiner to return.
They seated themselves; then round them on the outside of the circle gathered knots of warriors, chosen men, great and fierce, armed with kerries only. These were the slayers. When all was ready, the king came out, followed by his indunas and by me.
"Whau!" exclaimed the two indunas simultaneously, with their hands to their mouths. But Tyisandhlu said nothing, though a very humorous gleam seemed to steal over his fine features in the firelight. "The daughters of the Ba-gcatya are exceeding fair," repeated Laurence, "but I, the poorest man in the nation, cannot take wives.
Of course we at once threw everything overboard and loaded our wagon afresh with gold, as much of it as the blessed thing would carry or the oxen drag. And then what must that born idiot Van Raalte do but quarrel with one of the indunas about some trumpery thing, and slash the man across the face with his sjambok!
"Yes," answered Hadden, "they are cowards indeed. I believe that if they were seated on stools they would tumble off them just as it chanced to your Majesty to do just now." "Do you understand the making of guns, White Man?" asked the king hastily, while the Indunas one and all turned their heads, and contemplated the fence behind them. "No, King, I cannot make guns, but I can mend them."
Another very favorite adornment for the head consisted of a strip of gay cloth or ribbon, or of even a few bright threads, bound tightly like a fillet across the brows and confining a tuft of feathers over one ear; but I suspect all these fanciful arrangements were only worn by the gilded youth of a lower class, because I noticed that the chieftains and indunas, or headmen of the villages, never wore such frivolities.
A howl of rage goes up from the host, only Chaka smiles. "Open up! open up!" he cries. "Make room for the Umkandhlu GIRLS!" And with hanging heads they pass us. Now he whispers a word to the indunas. The indunas run; they whisper to Menziwa the general and to the captains; then two regiments rush down the hill, two more run to the right, and yet another two to the left.
Captain Gardiner's object was to obtain a house and piece of land and protection for a Christian missionary, and with this object he remained at the kraal, trying to make some impression on Dingarn, and the two indunas, who assured him that they were the king's eyes and ears. Thus he became witness to much horrible barbarity.
Then the king called his indunas round him, instructing one of them to take fifty men, and with them ride round the outside of the basin until they reached the only other exit from the valley, and block it, so that the buffalo might not escape through it; while a second induna was also to take fifty men and block the exit through which we had just passed, thus rendering escape from the valley an impossibility, for, as the king now informed me, the surrounding cliffs were everywhere vertical, so that no animal, save, perhaps, a baboon, could possibly enter or leave the basin except by one or the other of the two natural gateways in the cliff.
I climbed the hill till I came to where the chief was sitting with his indunas, or headmen, and sat down near to him. I looked at the man's face and saw that he was intensely anxious for his son's safety, and by no means confident of the young man's powers to resist the magic of Indaba-zimbi. He was talking in a low voice to the induna next to him.
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