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Updated: May 27, 2025
"And what does the king wish, Goza?" "He wishes, Macumazahn, that you, his friend, should visit him." "Which is just what I was on my way to do, Goza." "Not so, Macumazahn. The king said nothing about your friends, of whom I do not think he has ever heard any more than we have.
About the fifth day after my interview I saw Goza, who told me that the king's messengers were back from the Black Kloof and had brought "a word" for me from Zikali himself. The word was "Bid Goza say to Macumazahn that I was sorry not to see him to say good-bye, because that morning I slept heavily.
"What was that dog doing?" he asked of Goza, pointing to the brute whom I had knocked down and who still lay prostrate on his back, afraid to stir. "O King," answered Goza, "he was trying to kill Macumazahn because he is a white man, although I told him that he was your guest, being brought to you by the royal command.
Then dismissing the matter from his mind, as we white people dismiss any trivial incident in a morning stroll, he talked for a few minutes to the commanding officer of the regiment that was drilling, who ran up to make some report to him, and walked back towards the isigodhlo, beckoning me to follow with Goza.
After this for a time there was silence, while I sat immovable revolving the situation, and the Zulus regarded me with a benignant interest. Goza took his snuff-box from his ear, shook out some into the palm of his hand and, after offering it to me in vain, inhaled it himself. Choose which you will, Macumazahn.
It was a small fire burning near the tongue of rock which I have described. At a distance, in front of the fire on the patch of prepared ground, squatted a number of men, between twenty and thirty of them, in a semicircle. They were wrapped up in karosses and blankets, and in their centre sat a large figure on a chair of wood. "The King and the Great Council," whispered Goza.
Am I a prophet that I should be able to say which it is? Of that there is but one man in Zululand who knows the truth. It is he for whom the new huts are being built up yonder." "You think he really knows, Goza?" "No, Macumazahn, I do not think, I am sure. He is the greatest of all wizards, as he was when my father held on to his mother's apron.
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.
A low moan went up from his audience, and I felt the skin of Goza, who had shrunk against me, break into a profuse sweat. Then suddenly Zikali's voice changed one more and became hard and businesslike, if I may call it so, similar to that of other professional doctors. "You have sent for me, O King, as those who went before you have sent when great things were about to happen.
By the way, the king says that you will do well to put your pistol in your pocket in case any should seek to harm you in the dark." "It is there. But, Goza, I pray you to protect me, since in the dark bullets fly wide, and if I began to shoot, one might hit you, Goza."
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