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The Princess Nandie, who is with him for she will not leave him in his trouble, as all others have done on hearing these words of Saduko's, said that they were true, and that for this reason, although you were her friend, she did not hold it necessary to see you either."
Knowing the woman for Mameena, the wife of Masapo, who was on friendly terms with the Inkosazana, whom I supposed she had come to visit, I did not declare myself; nor did I take any particular note when I saw her sprinkle a little mat upon which the babe, Saduko's son, was wont to be laid, with some medicine, because I had heard her promise to the Inkosazana a powder which she said would drive away insects.
"Why should I, who am Saduko's Inkosikazi, and, as you say, daughter of Panda, the King, be jealous of the widow of the wizard, Masapo, and the daughter of the headman, Umbezi, whom it has pleased our husband to take into his house to be the companion of his leisure?" "Why?
I told them in as few words as I could, and after some slight cross-examination by Masapo, made with a view to prove that the upsetting of Nandie was an accident and that he was drunk at Saduko's feast, to both of which suggestions I assented, I rose to go. Panda, however, stopped me and bade me describe the aspect of the child when I was called in to give it medicine.
Only yesterday he told me to marry you, if I could, for then he would find a stick indeed to lean on, and be rid of Saduko's troubling." Evidently Umbezi was a worse card even than Saduko, so I played another. "And can I help you, Mameena, to tread a road that at the best must be red with blood?"
Then a spokesman stepped forward, one of the few grey-haired men among them, for most of these Amangwane were of the age of Saduko, or even younger. "O Watcher-by-Night," he said, "I am Tshoza, the brother of Matiwane, Saduko's father, the only one of his brothers that escaped the slaughter on the night of the Great Killing. Is it not so?" "It is so," exclaimed the serried ranks behind him.
Masapo's, for instance; Saduko's, for instance; Umbelazi's, for instance, none of whom got any luck from her pulling yes, and even at mine." Now, as I did not think it worth while to contradict his nonsense so far as I was concerned personally, I went off on this latter point.
"What has the old dwarf to do with this matter?" "Never mind what he has or has not to do with it," I broke in, for although I do not think that he meant them as a taunt, but merely as a statement of fact, Saduko's words stung me to the quick, especially as my conscience told me that they were not altogether without foundation.
Send me word, O Saduko, that this wall which I have built between us is broken down, since ere long you and I must stand together in war." To this message Saduko's answer was: "O Prince, you are troubled about a very little thing.
As for me, I sat down upon a stone and groaned, for now I understood everything. Presently the Usutu raised fierce, triumphant shouts, and once again their impi, swelled with Saduko's power, began to advance up the slope. Umbelazi, and those of the Isigqosa party who clung to him now, I should judge, not more than eight thousand men never stayed to wait the onslaught. They broke!
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