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"'Greeting, Macumazahn, he said, 'I see you do not remember me. "'Ah! I said, 'I know you now, you are Magepa the Buck. So the Runner has not yet been run down. "'No, Macumazahn, not yet, but there is still time. I think that many swift feet will be at work ere long. "'How have you prospered? I asked him. "'Well enough, Macumazahn, in all ways except one.
"'I know it, Macumazahn, he answered, with a nod, 'and perhaps in a day to come I shall know it better. "I took little heed of his words at the time, but more than thirty years afterwards I remembered them. "Such was my first acquaintance with Magepa. Now, friends, I will tell you how it was renewed at the time of the Zulu War.
When once the advance begins, if there is an advance, who knows what may happen? War is a rough game, Magepa. It is not the custom of you black people to spare women and children; and there will be Zulus fighting on our side as well as on yours; do you understand? "'Ow! I understand, Macumazahn.
"'Nay, Macumazahn, he answered in a meaning voice. 'This year all the cattle are the king's. "I nodded and replied that, as it was so, I had better be going, whereon, as I half expected, Magepa announced that he would see me safe to the drift. So I bade farewell to the wives and the widowed daughter, and we started. "As soon as we were clear of the kraal Magepa began to open his heart to me.
"'Indeed, I answered; and then as in duty bound I proceeded to get what I could out of him, and that was not a little. Of course, however, I did not swallow it all, since that I suspected that Magepa was feeding me with news that he had been ordered to disseminate.
"This was while he was yet a long way off, but when he came nearer, within three or four hundred yards, of a sudden I caught the outline of his face against a good background, and knew it for that of Magepa. "'My God! I said to myself, 'it is old Magepa the Buck, and the bundle in the mat will be his grandson, Sinala! "Yes, even then I felt certain that he was carrying the child upon his back.
In those shadows, of course, I could not see what it was, but such light as remained glinted on what might have been the polished tip of the horn of an antelope or an assegai. "'I told you it was a buck, Macumazahn, said Magepa. 'Still, if you smell danger, let us come away from the bush, though the orders are that no white man is to be touched as yet.
"'Where are their fathers? I asked, patting the little boy who, his mother told me, was named Sinala upon the cheek, an attention that he resented. "'They have been called away on duty, answered Magepa shortly; and I changed the subject. "Then we began to talk about old times, and I asked him if he had any oxen to sell, saying that this was my reason for visiting the kraal.
"I wonder whether in the 'Land Beyond' any recognition is granted for acts of great courage and unselfish devotion a kind of spiritual Victoria Cross. If so I think it ought to be accorded to that poor old savage, Magepa, as it would be if I had any voice in the matter. Upon my word he has made me feel proud of humanity. And yet he was nothing but a 'nigger, as so many call the Kaffirs."
"'He's done, I said, and, upon my word, if I had had a rifle in my hand I think I would have stopped one or both of those bloodhounds and taken the consequences. "But no! Just as the first man lifted his broad spear to stab him through the back on which the bundle lay, Magepa leapt up and wheeled round to take the thrust in the chest.
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