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Updated: June 2, 2025
Although he escaped himself, Quatermain had lost friends on that fatal field. He went on: "To return to old Magepa. I had known him for many years. The first time we met was in the battle of the Tugela. I was fighting for the king's son, Umbelazi the Handsome, in the ranks of the Tulwana regiment I mean to write all that story, for it should not be lost.
Along this I clambered, and beyond it up to my middle. Now Magepa was being swept past me. I caught his outstretched hand and pulled him ashore. "'The boy! he gasped; 'the boy! Is he dead? "I severed the lashings of the mat that had cut right into the old fellow's shoulders.
"'You mean that your horse ran, Macumazahn. Well, since you like this dog, I will not hurt him, and with a shrug he went his way. "'Yet soon or late he will hurt me, said Magepa, when the Prince had gone. 'U'Cetewayo has a memory long as the shadow thrown by a tree at sunset.
Why should I complain when I know that cautions from notable persons such as Sir Melmoth Osborn, and J. J. Uys, a member of one the old Dutch fighting families, met with a like fate. By the way it was while I was waiting on the banks of the river that I came across an old friend of mine, a Zulu named Magepa, with whom I had fought at the battle of the Tugela.
Evidently he did not wish to be speared in the back for a certain reason. He took it sure enough, for the assegai was wrenched out of the hand of the striker. Still, as he was reeling backwards, it did not go through Magepa, or perhaps it hit a bone. He drew out the spear and threw it at the man, wounding him. Then he staggered on, back and back, to the edge of the little cliff.
For had not Magepa and I talked secrets together, and in Zulu? "On the following morning at dawn I attended at the drift in the faint hope that Gita and her boy might arrive there as arranged. Only on the farther bank of the river I saw some Zulu scouts who seemed to know my errand, for they called to me, asking mockingly where was the pretty woman I had come to meet?
"What was I to do? It was impossible for me to cross the river at that place, and long before I could get round by the ford all would be finished. I stood up on my rock and shouted to those brutes of Kaffirs to let the man alone. They were so excited that they did not hear my words; at least, they swore afterwards that they thought I was encouraging them to hunt him down. "But Magepa heard me.
She was a well-formed woman, very like her father, but sad-faced, perhaps with a prescience of evil to come. Clinging to her finger was a beautiful boy of something under two years of age, who, when he saw Magepa, ran to him and threw his little arms about his legs.
For if we had been overheard by a spy, Magepa was as good as dead, and the sooner I was across the river the better. "'What's that? I asked. "'A bush buck, Macumazahn. There are lots of them about here. "Not being satisfied, though it is true that buck do cough like this, I turned my horse to the bush, seeking an opening. Thereon something crashed away and vanished into the long grass.
Whilst I was talking to him the Prince Cetewayo came by; to me he was civil enough, for he knew how I chanced to be in the battle, but he glared at Magepa, and said: "'Why, Macumazahn, is not this man one of the dogs with which you tried to bite me by the Tugela not long ago?
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