whom he had collected all this information, suddenly I heard sounds, and looking up, saw three tall men clad in full herald’s dress rushing towards us at great speed.
“Here come some chips from the Axe,” said Hans, and promptly bolted into the waggon.
I did not bolt because there was no time to do so without loss of dignity, but, although I wished I had my rifle with me, just sat still upon my stool and with great deliberation lighted my pipe, taking not the slightest notice of the three savage-looking fellows.
These, who I noted carried axes instead of assegais, rushed straight at me with the axes raised in such a fashion that anyone unacquainted with the habits of Zulu warriors of the old school, might have thought that they intended nothing short of murder.
As I expected, however, within about six feet of me they halted suddenly and stood there still as statues. For my part I went on lighting my pipe as though I did not see them and when at length I was obliged to lift my head, surveyed them with an air of mild interest.
Then I took a little book out of my pocket, it was my favourite copy of the Ingoldsby Legends—and began to read.
The passage which caught my eye, if “axe” be substituted for “knife” was not inappropriate. It was from “The Nurse’s Story,” and runs,
“But, oh! what a thing ’tis to see and to know
That the bare knife is raised in the hand of the foe,
Without hope to repel or to ward off the blow!”
This proceeding of mine astonished them a good deal who felt that they had, so to speak, missed fire. At last the soldier in the middle said,
“Are you blind, White Man?”
“No, Black Fellow,” I answered, “but I am short-sighted. Would you be so good as to stand out of my light?” a remark which puzzled them so much that all three drew back a few paces.
When I had read a little further I came to the following lines,
“ ’Tis plain,
As anatomists tell us, that never again,
Shall life revisit the foully slain
When once they’ve been cut through the jugular vein.”
In my circumstances at that moment this statement seemed altogether too suggestive, so I shut up the book and remarked,
“If you are wanderers who want food, as I judge by your being so thin, I am sorry that I have little meat, but my servants will give you what they can.”
“Ow!” said the spokesman, “he calls us wanderers! Either he must be a very great man or he is mad.”
“You are right. I am a great man,” I answered, yawning, “and if you trouble me too much you will see that I can be mad also. Now what do you want?”
“We are messengers from the great Chief Umslopogaas, Captain of the People of the Axe, and we want tribute,” answered the man in a somewhat changed tone.
“Do you? Then you won’t get it. I thought that only the King of Zululand had a right to tribute, and your Captain’s name is not Cetywayo, is it?”
“Our Captain is King here,” said the man still more uncertainly.
“Is he indeed? Then away with you back to him and tell this King of whom I have never heard, though I have a message for a certain Umslopogaas, that Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, intends to visit him to-morrow, if he will send a guide at the first light to show the best path for the waggon.”
“Hearken,” said the man to his companions, “this is Macumazahn himself and no other. Well, we thought it, for who else would have dared——”
Then they saluted with their axes, calling me “Chief” and other fine names, and departed as they had come, at a run, calling out that my message should be delivered and that doubtless Umslopogaas would send the guide.
So it came about that, quite contrary to my intention, after all circumstances brought me to the Town of the Axe. Even to the last moment I had not meant to go there, but when the tribute was demanded I saw that it was best to do so, and having once passed my word it could not be altered. Indeed, I felt sure that in this event there would be trouble and that my oxen would be stolen, or worse.
So Fate having issued its decree, of which Hans’s version was that Zikali, or his Great Medicine, had so arranged things, I shrugged my shoulders and waited.
CHAPTER III
UMSLOPOGAAS OF THE AXE
Next morning at the dawn guides arrived from the Town of the Axe, bringing with them a yoke of spare oxen, which showed that its Chief was really anxious to see me. So, in due course we inspanned and started, the guides leading us by a rough but practicable road down the steep hillside to the saucer-like plain beneath, where I saw many cattle grazing. Travelling some miles across this plain, we came at last to a river of no great breadth that encircled a considerable Kaffir town on three sides, the fourth being protected by a little line of koppies which were joined together with walls. Also the place was strongly fortified with fences and in every other way known to the native mind.
With the help of the spare oxen we crossed the river safely at the ford, although it was very full, and on the further side were received by a guard of men, tall, soldierlike fellows, all of them armed with axes as the messengers had been. They led us up to the cattle enclosure in the centre of the town, which although it could be used to protect beasts in case of emergency, also served the practical purpose of a public square.
Here some ceremony was in progress, for soldiers stood round the kraal while heralds pranced and shouted. At the head of the place in front of the chief’s big hut was a little group of people, among whom a big, gaunt man sat upon a stool clad in a warrior’s dress with a great and very long axe hafted with wire-lashed rhinoceros horn, laid across his knees.
Our guides led me, with Hans sneaking after me like a dejected and low-bred dog (for the waggon had stopped outside the gate), across the kraal to where the heralds shouted and the big man sat yawning. At once I noted that he was a very remarkable person, broad and tall and spare of frame, with long, tough-looking arms and a fierce face which reminded me of that of the late King Dingaan. Also he had a great hole in his head above the temple where the skull had been driven in by some blow, and keen, royal-looking eyes.
He looked up and seeing me, cried out,
“What! Has a white man come to fight me for the chieftainship of the People of the Axe? Well, he is a small one.”
“No,” I answered quietly, “but Macumazahn, Watcher-by-Night, has come to visit you in answer to your request, O Umslopogaas; Macumazahn whose name was known in this land before yours was told of, O Umslopogaas.”
The Chief heard and rising from his seat, lifted the big axe in salute.
“I greet you, O Macumazahn,” he said, “who although you are small in stature, are very great indeed in fame. Have I not heard how you conquered Bangu, although Saduko slew him, and of how you gave up the six hundred head of cattle to Tshoza and the men of the Amangwane who fought with you, the cattle that were your own? Have I not heard how you led the Tulwana against the Usutu and stamped flat three of Cetywayo’s regiments in the days of Panda, although, alas! because of an oath of mine I lifted no steel in that battle, I who will have nothing to do with those that spring from the blood of Senzangacona—perhaps because I smell too strongly