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As good luck would have it, the Induna was leaving that night for Durban, and, escorted by a body-guard of English residents armed with revolvers, and who were taking no chances of his recapture by the Boer agents, he was placed safely on board.
"Let him be taken away," shouted the incensed king from the ground, but long before the words had passed his lips the Induna, with a cry that the gun was bewitched, had cast it down and fled at full speed through the gate. "He has already taken himself away," suggested Hadden, while the audience tittered. "No, King, do not touch it rashly; it is a repeating rifle.
A startled cry from the induna commanding the squad which was at that moment in special charge of the king's person caused the eleven men who had until now sat quiescent upon their horses to fling themselves hastily to the ground and dash forward to protect their monarch.
Seeing me they stopped and stared, whereon Cetewayo shortly, but with much clearness, repeated to them and to an induna who accompanied them, what he had already said to me, namely that I was his guest, sent for by him that he might use me as a messenger if he thought fit.
'Ah, ah, he cried, in mockery, to the Elmoran, 'it is thou whom I talked with last night the Lygonani! the Herald! the capturer of little girls he who would kill a little girl! And thou didst hope to stand man to man and face to face with Umslopogaas, an Induna of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of the Amazulu? Behold, thy prayer is granted!
Farewell, Ibubesi; if the jackals leave anything of you after the Inkosazana has spoken, we will return to bury your bones," and he turned to go. "Stay," cried the dying man on the floor, "would you leave me here in pain, my brothers?" The induna stepped to him and examined him. "It is mortal," he said, shaking his head, "right through the liver.
One night after a particularly hard trek we inspanned at an old kraal, the painted walls of which told that at one time it had served as a royal residence, and as I had shot an eland cow that afternoon, which provided far more meat than we could consume, we invited the induna and his tribe to the feast.
My slaves your people have killed, and my ivory and goods the king has taken, leaving me nothing but my arms and ammunition. Tell me, then, do the Ba-gcatya give their daughters for nothing, or how shall a man who is so poor think to set up a kraal of his own?" The induna laughed dryly. "We are all poor that way, for all we own belongs to the king. Yet the Great Great One is open handed.
"You have brought his blood and the curse of the Inkosazana on our heads." "Wow!" answered the induna again, "you bade us strike him with sticks, and our orders were to obey you. Who would have guessed that the old man's skull was so thin from thinking? You or I would never have felt a tap like that. But they are 'gone beyond, and we will not defile ourselves by touching them.
Now I bethought me of Umslopogaas, but merely looked blank and shrugged my shoulders, saying that I was not in the habit of consorting with evil-doers. Still unsatisfied, the Induna questioned me as to the places where I had been during this journey of mine in the Zulu country.
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