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Now there was but one thing to be done to make ready their defence, so, without more ado, Sihamba summoned her council and told them that a Zulu impi was at hand to eat them up because of the white cattle that had been placed among the herds.
So afraid was he that he did not like the sight of it in its anger, and would wake at nights at the sound of a storm yes, he whom I have seen sleep through the trumpetings of frightened elephants and the shouting of a Zulu impi. "You think that sight fine, wife," he said, pointing to the spouting foam; "but I call it the ugliest in the world.
'Mfuni, the man who had fought me by command of Lomalindela, and had afterwards attached himself to my train, exhibited some slight symptoms of regret at parting from his friends in the returning impi; but he quickly recovered from his fit of the blues, and, evidently being very fond of animals, devoted himself with zest to the task of making friends with the horses and dogs.
All day she rode alone, Tamboosa leading the white ox before her and Richard following behind, while in front and to the rear marched the serried ranks of the impi, her escort. At night, as before, she slept alone in the empty kraals provided for her, attended by the best-born maidens, Richard being lodged in some hut without the fence.
He paused and left me for a moment while the wagon was getting into motion and the impi was forming up round it; then, when we were fairly under way, he came to my side again, and remarked: "Au, Chia'gnosi! thine arrival at Gwanda was well timed; for many are still alive who, but for thee, would have lain dead in the great square before the setting of yonder sun.
Then, as it was these whom he was chiefly charged to kill, the captain called off the impi from watching for the dwellers in the town, and started in pursuit of Umslopogaas.
For him who could swim a rushing river, there was, indeed, a swifter way to the place of the People of the Axe a way that was to the path of the impi as is the bow-string to the strung bow. And yet they had travelled well-nigh half the length of the bow. Still, he might do it, he whose feet were the swiftest in the land, except those of Umslopogaas. At the least, he would try.
Tamboosa, if it were he who had spoken with the lad, would not have had time to return to Zululand and collect an impi, and when they did come, the deed might be done. If only these servants of Ibubesi would rise against him and kill him, or carry off Richard and herself! Alas! they feared the man too much, and she could not get at them to persuade them.
"'I hear that a white man is hunting in the Matuku country. This is to warn him to fly over the mountain to Nala. Wambe sends an impi at daybreak to eat him up, because he has hunted before bringing hongo. For God's sake, whoever you are, try to help me. I have been the slave of this devil Wambe for nearly seven years, and am beaten and tortured continually.
Years of merciless warfare had so hardened these people that they looked on death as nothing, and were, to do them justice, as willing to meet it themselves as to inflict it on others. When this very Impi had been sent out by the Zulu King Dingaan, it consisted of some nine thousand men. Now it numbered less than three; all the rest were dead. They, too, would probably soon be dead.
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