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This was his command, that a great impi should be gathered and sent to Swaziland against the Halakazi tribe, to destroy them and seize the maid.
Had this method been followed by our troops at the battle of Isandhlwana, who had ample waggons at hand to enable them to execute the manoeuvre, had the soldiers even been collected in a square beneath the cliff of the mountain, it cannot be doubted but that, armed as they were with breech-loaders, they would have been able to drive back not only the impi sent against them, but, if necessary, the entire Zulu army.
Finding that they were not pursued, Cetewayo's impi reformed swiftly at the bottom of the slope, in preparation for another charge. Among that of Umbelazi, above them, rapid movements took place of which I could not guess the meaning, which movements were accompanied by much noise of angry shouting.
An hour later, surrounded by the impi, and followed by Richard, Rachel was on the Tugela road. At the crest of a hill she pulled rein and looked back at the great kraal, Umgugundhlovu. Then she beckoned Richard to her side and said: "I think that before long I shall see that hateful place again." "Why?" he asked. "Because of the way in which those indunas looked at each other just now.
And finally, I loaded my own pet rifle and a brace of pistols, thrust the latter in my belt, and, carrying the rifle in my hand, mounted Prince and rode off unaccompanied to be present at the festival, since, according to Mapela, failure to comply with the king's command would inevitably result in myself and my following being "eaten up" otherwise destroyed by an impi.
As for me, I sat down upon a stone and groaned, for now I understood everything. Presently the Usutu raised fierce, triumphant shouts, and once again their impi, swelled with Saduko's power, began to advance up the slope. Umbelazi, and those of the Isigqosa party who clung to him now, I should judge, not more than eight thousand men never stayed to wait the onslaught. They broke!
"Let the Umkandhlu regiment come forward!" he shouted a third time, and as he spoke the black shields of the Umkandhlu leaped from the ranks of the impi. "Go, my children!" cried Chaka. "There is the foe. Go and return no more!" "We hear you, father!" they answered with one voice, and moved down the slope like a countless herd of game with horns of steel.
So we parted I to return to Dingaan and tell him that Bulalio, Chief of the People of the Axe, had gone up against the Halakazi to win the Lily maid and bring her to him in atonement; while Umslopogaas remained to make ready his impi for war. I went swiftly from the Ghost Mountain back to the kraal Umgugundhlovu, and presented myself before Dingaan, who at first looked on me coldly.
Therefore he held his hand for awhile, sending no impi to smite Umslopogaas, lest it might come about that I should bring him his death as I had promised.
We met no man, but once or twice we saw groups of cattle wandering unherded, and this astonished us, giving us hope, for it was not the custom of a victorious impi to leave the cattle of its enemy behind it, though if the people of the Umpondwana had conquered, it was strange that we should see no herds with the beasts.
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