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Updated: June 28, 2025
Especially was the commandant interested in the story of my bet with Dingaan, whereby I saved the lives of all my companions by shooting the vultures. "It was not for nothing, nephew, that God Almighty gave you the power of holding a gun so straight," said Retief to me when he understood the matter.
The Boer scouts discovered passes over the Drakensberg which gave them a readier access than they had expected into Natal. It had not recovered from the devastations of Chaka and was thinly inhabited. Settlements were made near the banks of the Tugela, while Piet Retief, after a brief visit to Durban, went on to negotiate with Dingaan at the royal kraal of Umgungundhlovu in Zululand.
"I witnessed that," The Ambassador hissed. "By the goodness of Providence, the Potentate and his retinue haven't appeared yet. But I can assure you the servants saw it. A more un-Nenni-like display I would find it difficult to imagine!" Retief arranged his features in an expression of deep interest. "More un-Nenni-like, sir?" he said. "I'm not sure I " "Bah!"
"More likely, they're at the palace picking up their knives." They rounded a corner, stepped over a man curled in the gutter snoring heavily and found themselves at the foot of a long flight of littered stone steps. "The Drunkard's Stairs are plainly marked," Magnan sniffed. "I hear sounds up there," Retief said. "Sounds of merrymaking." "Maybe we'd better go back."
Then he spoke with that slow deliberation which was his when thinking deeply. "Two years ago, when Retief did what he liked in this part of the country, there were many stories going about as to his relationship with a certain lady in this settlement." "Miss Allandale yes, I have heard." "Just so; some said that she er was very partial to him. Some, that they were distantly connected.
So we went forward, Kambula and his soldiers walking or trotting at my side. For four full days we journeyed thus, keeping, so far as I could judge, about twenty or thirty miles to the east of that road by which I had left Zululand before and re-entered it with Retief and his commission.
It traveled swiftly, urged by a pursuing dread over plans for the future. The guiding star of his thought was safety. At all costs he must find safety for his property and himself. So long as Retief was at large there could be no safety for him in Foss River. He must get away. He must get away, bearing with him the fruits which yet remained to him of his life's toil.
"Until she is of age that oath holds." "Oho!" said Retief, "you have sworn your lamb to that hyena, have you? Well, look out that he does not crack your bones as well as hers, and perhaps some others also. Why does God give some men a worm in their brains, as He does to the wildebeeste, a worm that always makes them run the wrong way?
"As I should have been, Mynheer Pereira, twice over if you could have had your way," I replied. "What do you mean, Allan?" broke in Retief. "I will tell you what he means," exclaimed the Vrouw Prinsloo, shaking her fat fist at Pereira. "That yellow dog means that twice he has tried to murder Allan Allan, who saved his life and ours.
On arriving in front of Dingaan we saluted him, and he acknowledged the salutation with pleasant words and smiles. Then Retief, two or three of the other Boers, Thomas Halstead and I went forward, whereon the treaty was produced again and identified as the same document that we had seen on the previous day.
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