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Updated: June 8, 2025
But this is not the place to tell it, that tale of my first love and of the terrible events which befell us in the time of Dingaan. Still, as I say, I have written it down, and perhaps one day it will be read. I slept very well that night, I suppose because I was so dog-tired I could not help it; but next day, on our long walk back to Umbezi's kraal, I thought a great deal.
Dingaan and Umhlangana, brothers of the king, were there, for Chaka would not suffer them to depart, fearing lest they should plot against him, and he looked on them always with an angry eye, so that they trembled for their lives, though they dared not show their fear lest fate should follow fear.
Presently the Boers came in on foot and walked up to the king in a body, and Dingaan greeted them kindly and shook hands with Retief, their captain. Then Retief drew the paper from a leather pouch, which set out the boundaries of the grant of land, and it was translated to the king by an interpreter.
That afterwards he had been a general of Dingaan's until that king killed the Boers under Retief, when he left him and finally sided with Panda in the civil war in which Dingaan was killed with the help of the Boers. That he had been present at the battle of the Tugela, though he took no actual part in the fighting, and afterwards became a councillor of Panda's and then of Cetewayo his son.
So we went; but only three or four, of whom I was one, were admitted to Dingaan's presence, the rest remaining at a little distance, where they could see us but were out of earshot. Dingaan then produced a paper which had been written by the Reverend Mr. Owen.
"I understand," answered Kambula; "Dingaan's thoughts are his thoughts and your thoughts are your thoughts, and perhaps that is why he does not want to see you. Still, remember, Inkoos, that Dingaan has saved your life, snatching you unburned out of a very great fire, perhaps because you are of a different sort of wood, which he thinks it a pity to burn. Now, if you are ready, let us go."
He has sent me hither for one reason only, to be rid of me awhile, and, whatever the words I bring back to him, the end will be the same that night shall come when you will find an impi at your gates." "Then what need to talk more of the matter, my father?" asked Umslopogaas. "That will come which must come. Let me wait here for the impi of Dingaan, and fight till I do."
This afternoon the Zulus killed your father and mother, or rather they killed your father, and your mother, who was ill, died with the shock, because they refused to go to Zululand whither Dingaan had ordered that they should be taken. So seeing that you were travelling here I came to rescue you, lest you should fall into their hands, and," he added lamely, "you know the rest."
So Dingaan had no impi to spare to send to the Ghost Mountain, and we who were beneath its shadow dwelt there in peace. This time for Boers were beaten, for Bogoza, the spy, led them into an ambush; still few were killed, and they did but draw back that they might jump the further, and Dingaan knew this.
There would, for example, be dished up falsely rendered and dramatically coloured and perverted selections, such as the treacherous massacre of Retief's party in 1838, averring that the Zulu king, Dingaan, had been incited thereto by the British authorities; tragic descriptions of events, coupled with the massacres by Zulu impis soon after at Weenen and Blaauwkrantz, averred also to have taken place at the instance of the English Government, and ever and anon references and full tragic descriptions of the Slachtersnek execution in 1816, omitting to state that the Boer culprits were hanged after fair and open trial and conviction by a "Boer" jury for high treason in conspiring with Kaffirs against the Government, which crime had led to bloodshed, and that their relatives had been ordered to witness the execution because they had been abettors and privy to the crime.
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