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Updated: June 19, 2025
A little later the rest of the Mazitu returned with Babemba and finished the job. Only quite a few of the Arabs got out and were captured after they had thrown down their guns. The rest retreated into the centre of the market-place, whither our people followed them. In this crisis the blood of these Mazitu told, and they stuck to the enemy as Zulus themselves would certainly have done.
The Imbozhwa, or Babemba rather, came early this morning, and called on Mohamad to come out of his stockade if he were a man who could fight, but the fence is now finished, and no one seems willing to obey the taunting call: I have nothing to do with it, but feel thankful that I was detained, and did not, with my few attendants, fall into the hands of the justly infuriated Babemba.
For instance, when I remonstrated with Bausi and old Babemba as to their not keeping up a proper system of outposts and intelligence, they laughed at me and answered that they never had been attacked and now that the Pongo had learnt a lesson, were never likely to be.
Imbozwi did not seem to think that the question required an answer, so Bausi continued: "What was the song that you sang in our ears just now that if Dogeetah came you would be ready to be shot to death with arrows in the place of these white lords whose lives you swore away, was it not?" Again Imbozwi made no answer, although Babemba called his attention to the king's query with a vigorous kick.
Ten minutes or so later Babemba arrived with about fifty men, all the Mazitu soldiers who were left in the town. He reported that he had held the north gate as long as he could in order to gain time, and that the Arabs were breaking it in. I begged him to order the soldiers to pile up stones as a defence against the bullets and to lie down behind them. This he went to do.
By now, or rather some time before, old Babemba and the Mazitu had seen us, as had our Zulu hunters. Crowds of them were wading through the shallows towards us, yelling encouragements as they came. The Zulus, too, opened a rather wild fire, with the result that one of the bullets struck our canoe and another touched the brim of my hat.
Would I, one of your own people, betray you?" "True!" exclaimed Babemba. "By your talk and your face you are a Mazitu. How came you well, we will speak of that afterwards. I am very thirsty. I will come. Soldiers, sit down and watch, and if any harm happens to me, avenge it and report to the king."
Three minutes later the Mazitu, divided into two bodies, were running like hares to encircle the town, and though a few were shot as they descended the slope, the most of them gained the shelter of the palisade in safety, and there at intervals halted by sections, for Babemba managed the matter very well.
This idea was abandoned, however, since the Arabs would certainly overtake and shoot us down. One thing I did. I persuaded Babemba to send about fifty men to build up the southern gate, which was made of trunks of trees and opened outwards, with earth and the big stones that lay about in plenty.
"Yes," echoed Ragnall, "we must certainly go," while even Savage, for I had been translating to them all this while, nodded his head although he looked as though he would much rather stay behind. "Ask him if there are any snakes there, sir," he said, and foolishly enough I put the question to give me time to think of other things. "Yes, O Bena. Yes, O Cock of the Ashpit," replied Babemba.
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