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He answered that now he was great and there was nothing more to win, and at times a weariness of life came upon him, and then he must up, and together with Galazi hunt and harry with the wolves, for thus only could he find rest. I said that I would show him better game to hunt before all was done, and asked him further if he loved his wife, Zinita.
Still, he told Galazi something of the tale, and that he was determined to do battle with Jikiza the Unconquered for the axe Groan-Maker. Galazi said that he would do well to let it be, and that it was better to stay with the wolves than to go out seeking strange weapons.
No one was to be seen without this hill, nor in the great kraal of the Halakazi that lay to the east of it, and yet the ground about was trampled with the hoofs of oxen and the feet of men, and from within the mountain came a sound of lowing cattle. "Here is the nest of Halakazi," quoth Galazi the Wolf. "Here is the nest indeed," said Umslopogaas; "but how shall we come at the eggs to suck them?
And when the sun was down Galazi took up his tale. "Now Umslopogaas, son of Mopo, hear! I had passed the forest, and had come, as it were, to the legs of the old stone Witch who sits up aloft there forever waiting for the world to die.
Then Umslopogaas and Galazi made ready for the battle. They posted all the young men in the broken ground above the bottom of the slope, for these could best be spared to the spear, and Galazi the Wolf took command of them; but the veterans stayed upon the hillside, and with them Umslopogaas. Now the Halakazi came on, and there were four full regiments of them.
Then Galazi remembered the dream that he had dreamed, in which the Dead One in the cave had seemed to speak, telling him that there only where the men-eaters had hunted in the past might the wolves hunt to-day. So they returned home, but Umslopogaas set himself to find a plan to win the axe.
They stood upon the rise, and looked, and lo! yet far off, but running towards them, was the whole impi of the Halakazi, and it was a great impi. "They have gathered their strength indeed," said Galazi. "For every man of ours there are three of these Swazis!" The soldiers saw also, and the courage of some of them sank low. Then Umslopogaas spoke to them:
They were suffered to escape, except those of the women and children who were kept to be led away as captives. And they ran far that night. Nor did they come together again to be a people, for they feared Galazi the Wolf, who would be chief over them, but they were scattered wide in the world, to sojourn among strangers.
Now the heaven was grey, and east and west and north and south tongues of flame shot up against the sky, for the town had been fired by the Slayers. Umslopogaas looked and his sense came back to him: he understood. "Which way, brother?" he said. "Through the fire and the impi to our Grey People on the mountain," said Galazi. "There, if we can win it, we shall find succour."
None touched me; none could catch me; the man does not live who can overtake me when my feet are on the ground and I am away." "Yet I might try," said Umslopogaas, smiling, for of all lads among the Zulus he was the swiftest of foot. "First walk again, then run," answered Galazi. "Take up the tale," quoth Umslopogaas; "it is a merry one." "Something is left to tell, stranger.
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