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"I've just seen me two orderlies swimmin' away down-stream." The sick, wet and filthy as they were, had to be hurried away in dhoolies to the chapels and churches again. They will probably be safe there as long as the Geneva flag is not hoisted. December 16, 1899. This is Dingaan's Day, the great national festival of the Boers.
The Town-Guard called out Echoes of Colenso Heliograms from Buller The Boers and Dingaan's Day Disappointing news Special correspondents summoned Victims of the bombardment Shaving under shell fire Tea with Lord Ava Boer humour: "Where is Buller?" Sir George White's narrow escape A disastrous shot Fiftieth day of the siege Grave and gay "What does England think of us?"
Their fantastic purpose was said to be the taking of Pretoria itself on Dingaan's Day, the 16th of December. As all the South African world knows, this date marks the anniversary of the famous fight of the Voortrekkers at Blood River in 1838.
When I asked the Indunas about her at first they pretended total ignorance, but on my pressing the question, one of them said that 'all that tale was unlucky and "went beyond" with Mopo. Now Mopo, as I think I wrote to you, was the man who stabbed King Chaka, Dingaan's brother. He is supposed to have been mixed up in the death of Dingaan also, and to be dead himself.
"I hear," said Ishmael, "and will start as soon as the cattle have been delivered and sent on with the ivory to my kraal, Mafooti." There was something in the man's voice, or in the look of low cunning which spread itself over his face, that attracted Dingaan's attention.
Certainly where privacy was an object it was well chosen, for, as Cetewayo had said and as Goza emphasized to me, it had the repute of being the most thoroughly haunted place in all Zululand, with the sole exception, perhaps, of the ridge opposite to Dingaan's old kraal where once I shot the vultures for my life and those of my companions.* Even in the daytime people gave it a wide berth, and at night nothing would induce them to approach it, at any rate alone.
As we drew near Zikali opened his mouth and uttered a loud and terrifying laugh. How well I remembered that laugh which I had first heard at Dingaan's kraal as a boy after the murder of Retief and the Boers.* "I begin to think that you are right and that this old gentleman must be the devil," said Anscombe to Heda, then lapsed into silence.
"Because I am a child in the house of my people, and they will not allow me to leave even for a day," she answered, thinking that this reply would appeal to a race who believe absolutely in obedience to parents and every established authority. "Is it so?" remarked the old induna who spoke as Dingaan's Mouth not Mopo, but another.
"What is it, Nephew?" asked the oldest of the bearded men, speaking in Dutch. "Why are you in such a hurry?" "This, Uncle," he answered, in the same language, and in a pleasant voice that sounded familiar to Rachel's ears. "That spy, Quabi, whom we sent out a long time ago and who was reported dead, reached Dingaan's kraal, and has come back with a strange story."
When they left it in the morning she called Tamboosa to her and asked him at what hour they would come to Dingaan's great town, Umgugundhlovo, which means the Place of the trumpeting of the Elephant. He answered, at sunset.
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