Chapter Ten.
I find myself in an exceedingly awkward Dilemma.
The king—as to whose identity there could be no possible mistake—was seated in the very centre of the great square upon some sort of throne, the precise shape and material of which I could not make out, for it was entirely hidden by an immense and magnificent kaross of lions’ skins; and formed up in a semicircle behind and around him were about a hundred warriors, the arms and accoutrements of whom were of so elaborate and splendid a character that I at once judged them—rightly, as it afterward turned out—to be chiefs.
But since the king was seated in the exact centre of the great square, there was still a space of nearly four hundred and fifty yards separating us when I passed through the line of warriors; therefore, for the moment, I could only take in the general effect of the group, and very imposing it was. For, with the exception of some half a dozen elders, every one of those chiefs was in the very prime of life, ringed of course, standing fully six feet in height, each one of them bearing the scars of many battles—as I perceived when I drew near—and evidently men who knew not the meaning of the word fear. And in every respect worthy of them was their king, whom, as I approached, I saw to be a man apparently of about thirty-five to forty years of age, splendidly proportioned, and probably quite as tall as the tallest of his chiefs, although I could only judge his height approximately, since he was sitting down. Unlike his warriors, however, he was naked, save for the usual mucha or apron of monkeys’ tails round his loins, and a superb leopard-skin kaross over his shoulders; and he was also unarmed, save for a bangwan or stabbing spear with an enormous blade, which he held carelessly across his knees as I approached. But I did not like the expression of his countenance, or indeed that of any of the Mashona, which seemed to me to be compounded of craftiness, treachery, and ferocious cruelty. Moreover, His Majesty seemed to be in anything but a good humour—perhaps I had kept him waiting rather too long; for as I approached near enough to note the expression upon his features I observed that his brows were contracted into a heavy frown, and there was a certain glitter in his eyes that I by no means liked. However, if he chanced to be striving to daunt me by his scowling looks it was important that he should be made to understand that he had by no means succeeded; therefore, walking slowly and with all the dignity I could assume, I marched straight up to him, and, looking him fearlessly in the eyes, halted about ten feet from him, and, giving him a military salute, remarked, in the Bantu tongue:
“Greeting, Lomalindela, King and Lord of the Mashona! I, Edward Laurence, one of the mighty English race, salute thee!”
“I see thee, white man of the unpronounceable name,” answered the king somewhat ungraciously. “Ye desired audience of me, and I have given it you; say now, therefore, why have ye come into my country, and what want ye now that I have permitted you to enter it?”
“Nay, O King,” I retorted, “beyond what you have already given me—namely, permission to hunt in your country—I want little or nothing, except permission to trade with your people. There is gold in Mashonaland, which is a metal that, so far as I have thus seen, ye have little use for; but among my own people it possesses a certain value: therefore have I come hither, bringing with me goods which I am prepared to barter for gold among your people, if they will. But if not, it matters not; I can buy ivory with those goods on my way back to mine own land. Also, I am seeking a young white ’ntombozaan who was stolen from among us some twenty-two moons ago, and carried off into the interior, whither I know not. I think she cannot have been brought so far as this; yet, who knows? Have you heard or seen aught of such an ’ntombozaan, O King?”
“I have not, white man, nor is she in Mashonaland, for otherwise I should have heard of it and seen her,” answered Lomalindela. “The few strangers who enter my country are brought to me, and I deal with them as I will. No, she has not been here; therefore that part of your errand is soon disposed of. And as to the other part of it, I will consider the matter at my leisure. Have ye aught else to say to me?”
“Merely to ask Your Majesty’s acceptance of certain gifts which I have brought with me. Is it the king’s pleasure that I produce them?” I blandly enquired.
An expression of covetousness flashed into the king’s eyes as he nodded and replied briefly:
“Yes, you may produce them.”
I beckoned to Piet, who, as my supposed body servant, had been permitted to enter the great square with me, and he at once stepped forward with the bundle containing the presents, which he laid at my feet. Then deliberately, and with as much ceremony as I could infuse into so commonplace an act, I unfastened the bundle, extracted the items of uniform one by one, unfolded them, and held them up for inspection. The king regarded each garment attentively and somewhat wonderingly as I held it up, but did not appear to be very profoundly impressed; and I began to fear that my great coup was about to miss fire. When, however, I came to the sword, drew it from its scabbard, flourished the glittering blade round my head, and made several cuts and points at an imaginary enemy, His Majesty sat upright in his chair and began to manifest a little more interest.
“Is that one of the white man’s fighting weapons?” he demanded, stretching forth his hand for it.
“It is,” answered I, as I handed it to him. And forthwith I proceeded to explain to him how it was used. He examined the weapon with much curiosity, ran his thumb along the edge, remarked that it was not very sharp, and then, to my unutterable dismay, handed it back to me, saying:
“Good! Thou shalt show me how it is used. One of my warriors, armed with spear and shield, shall fight thee!”
For a second or two I was too dumbfounded to speak. I knew that savages were subject to queer and unexpected turns of thought, but this was a development that I had never foreseen even in my most fantastic imaginings, and I was utterly at a loss as to how I was to deal with such an extraordinary situation. It was not that I was exactly afraid to meet a savage in mortal combat, for I had often done so before; but that was on the field of battle, when my opponents were the enemies of my race, thirsting for the white man’s blood, and when my only choice lay between killing and being killed. But to deliberately engage in a cold-blooded duel with a man against whom I had no grudge, and to incur the obligation of killing or being killed merely to gratify the whim of a savage monarch, was quite another matter, and one that, to confess the simple truth, I had no fancy for. Yet how to escape the dilemma I knew not, though it was forcibly borne in upon me that it would never do for me to betray the slightest hesitation, for savage kings are kittle cattle to deal with, and to cross even their lightest mood may often result in a ghastly tragedy. Therefore, more in the hope of gaining time than for any other reason, I said:
“Nay, O King, it were mere waste of good material to slay one of thy warriors in order to show thee how this weapon is used, nor is it necessary; I can make the matter quite clear to thee without killing a man, and will do so in due time. Let me now proceed to display the remainder of my gifts;” and hastily diving into the parcel I produced the length of brass chain with the shaving mirror attached, held it up for an instant that all might see, and then placed it round my own neck, to show how it was to be worn. And at that moment what seemed to me to be a brilliant inspiration seized me, and I began to talk somewhat hurriedly, in the hope of diverting the king’s mind from the idea of the suggested duel.
“This,” said I, removing the chain and mirror from my neck and offering it to His Majesty, “is great magic, for it enables a man to see himself. Behold!” And I held it up so that Lomalindela might see the reflection of his own visage in it. He took it doubtingly and hesitatingly in his hand—for there is nothing a South African savage dreads so much as magic or witchcraft—and a low, awestricken ejaculation of “Au!” escaped him at what he beheld.
“And that is not all,” I continued. “This magic disk enables its owner to see what is happening behind him. As thus:” and I slightly turned the mirror in his hand as he held it, in such a fashion that he could see the faces of the various chiefs who stood behind him.
“Finally,” I proceeded, “it has the power of temporarily blinding an enemy, and so giving its possessor power over him—thus:” and, as I spoke, I turned the mirror in such a fashion that it flashed the rays of the sun right into the eyes of several of the soldiers lining the square, who, despite the awful breach of discipline involved in the action, incontinently raised their shields as the dazzling reflection struck their eyes.
“Au!” ejaculated Lomalindela in awestruck tones, as he handled the mirror doubtfully; “it is great and good magic, for it enables a man to see the enemy who comes creeping up behind him, and to blind the enemy who assails him in front. I thank thee, white man. Thou shalt show me how to use it too.”
“Certainly,” I replied hastily. “All in good time. And now, lastly, behold! here are boxes of beads for thy favourite wives, wherewith they may adorn themselves.”
The king took the brass boxes, one by one, in his hands, turned them over and looked at them, and then calmly drew from the lobe of his right ear an ivory snuffbox about the same size, and substituted therefor one of the other boxes, amid low murmurs of admiration from the chiefs in his rear.
“It is good; and again I thank thee, white man,” he remarked, as he placed the remaining brass boxes in the hands of one of the chiefs, with a low-murmured order, the purport of which I could not catch. “Yes, it is good,” he repeated, turning to me. “But what are these things good for?” he enquired, pointing to the little pile of clothes which I had replaced in the bundle.
“Listen, O King, and I will tell thee,” I replied. “In the land where the white men live there are kings even as there are in this land; and—also as in this land—they are men undistinguishable from other men, save by their clothing. Also, as in Mashonaland, the king is a soldier, the chief and general of all his troops; and he is distinguishable from all others by the magnificence of his clothing. Therefore, when I decided to visit Mashonaland, and the matter of suitable presents arose in my mind, I decided that I could not possibly offer anything more suitable and acceptable to the King of Mashona than the garb of a soldier such as a king wears. And, behold, there it is!”
“Au!” ejaculated Lomalindela, regarding the little heap with new interest. “Is that, then, the garb that the king of the white men wears?”
“Even so,” I answered, straining the truth a little. “It is the garb of a soldier, and that is the kind of garb which a white king wears upon state occasions, such as a review of his troops, or upon the occasion of some very great and important ceremonial.”
“Good!” ejaculated the king. “Thy gift comes most opportunely. To-morrow is the day of the great annual festival in Mashonaland, when I review all my soldiers, and when the witch doctors smell out those who are my secret enemies. I will wear it then. But thou, white man, must show me how each thing is used, for I have never before seen anything like them.”
“Assuredly I will,” said I. “Shall it be now?” The king considered for a moment, and then answered in the affirmative, at the same time beckoning to a certain chief, an elderly, grey-headed man, and giving him an order; whereupon the chief—whom I assumed to be deep in his monarch’s confidence—left his place in the semicircular cordon behind the throne, and, advancing to where the bundle lay at my feet, lifted it reverentially and bore it away to a large, rectangular hut—which I took to be the itunkulu, or king’s house—at the far corner of the square, whither Lomalindela and I forthwith followed him. This hut, which was about fifty feet long by about forty feet broad, and some seven feet high to the eaves of the roof, was built of what is known in Cape Colony as “wattle and daub”; that is to say, the walls had been constructed of interlaced wattle-work plastered over with mud and allowed to dry in the heat of the sun, after which they and the roof had been thickly thatched with palm leaves. This effectually turned the heavy tropical rain to which the country is subject at certain seasons of the year, and was also a pretty effectual protection against the scorching rays of the sun; consequently the interior temperature of such a structure, stifling though it frequently was, was not nearly so great as that of the outer air. In this particular case, too, the doorway, unlike that of the usual Kafir hut, was high enough to permit a full-grown man to enter without stooping; but, like other Kafir huts, this was entirely destitute of windows, the only light, during the daytime at least, being what entered by the doorway. A minute or two, however, sufficed for the eye to become accustomed to the change of light, and when mine had done so I perceived that the interior of this particular hut was divided by wattle partitions into apparently three apartments, two in the front half and the other—which I surmised to be sacred to the king’s emposeni, or harem—occupying the rear half. The apartment which we first entered was probably the king’s sitting-room, for it contained nothing but a low divan-like arrangement running all round the walls and covered with rich karosses, while through the doorway leading to the other apartment I caught an indistinct glimpse of what looked like a rough imitation of a couch or bed, also heaped high with karosses.
The king lost no time in coming to the point. He signed to the attendant chief to place the bundle on the divan, then turned to me and said:
“Now, white man, teach me how to array myself in the garb of the white kings.”
“Then,” said I, taking up the booted trousers, “this is the first garment which Your Majesty must don.” And I explained as best I could how he was to clothe himself. The fact that the boots were attached to the trousers made the assumption of the garment somewhat awkward, but luckily the boots were ample in size, and the monarch managed to get his feet into them without much difficulty. Then I explained how he must tuck the mucha inside, and when this was done, and the garment drawn up round his waist, I passed the braces over his shoulders and showed him how to button them. The trousers were scarlet—just a little off colour with wear, I am afraid—with a broad stripe of yellow braid down the outer seam, and the effect was evidently satisfactory to the king, who walked up and down the room several times admiring himself. Then I took up the tunic, and after I had explained how it was worn the induna and I assisted His Majesty to get into it, and I buttoned it down the front. Next I attached the fur-trimmed pelisse to one shoulder, adjusted the shoulder belt, threw the brass chain with mirror attached round his neck, placed the plumed shako on his head, girded the sword about his waist, and there he stood, a most grotesque yet withal not unkingly figure, fully attired in the uniform of a hussar.
The effect upon the induna was tremendous; he stood for several seconds gazing open-mouthed upon the awe-inspiring apparition of his king in the new and strange attire, and then, flinging himself prone upon the ground with his hands over his eyes, exclaimed:
“It is too much; mine eyes are not strong enough to gaze upon so much splendour! Bayete! Bayete!! Bayete!!!”
As for the king, his gratification and pride were unbounded: never before, I suppose, had he beheld any man so completely overpowered with admiration as this old induna; and if such was the effect of his appearance upon a man with whom he was, comparatively speaking, familiar, what might he not expect to be the result when he exhibited himself in his kingly attire to his troops? He swelled visibly with gratified vanity—for vanity and fear of witchcraft are the two overmastering emotions of the savage—grinned from ear to ear as he took the mirror in his hand and gazed admiringly at the reflected image of himself crowned with the smart shako and its nodding horsehair plume, and finally turned to me with the question:
“Say now, white man, what think ye? Do I look like a white king?”
“In every respect, Your Majesty,” answered I, with several mental reservations.
“Au! it is good; it is very good indeed!” he exclaimed. “Now am I a white king, and when my enemies behold me they shall tremble, and their hearts shall melt within them as the snow upon the mountain tops melts when the glory of the sun shines upon it. Their courage shall fail and their spirit shall wither at the sight of me, even as the grass withers and shrivels at the breath of fire. I am the king!”
A silence of a few minutes followed this rhapsody, then he turned to the still prostrate induna, and, kicking him gently in the ribs with his booted foot, exclaimed:
“Rise, Mapela, and behold me! You must grow accustomed to the sight of me in my kingly garb, for now that I have it I shall often delight the eyes of my people by wearing it. Say, now, shall I go forth this instant and make glad the hearts of the soldiers who are gathered in the great square by showing myself to them?”
Mapela revolved this very important question in his mind for nearly a minute; then he raised his head and answered:
“If, O Great, Great One, the words of the humblest of thy servants carry weight with thee I would say, show not thyself in thy glorious garb until to-morrow. There are but a few warriors in the square to-day, so few that they are altogether unworthy of so great an honour as that which thou dost suggest; moreover, they would go away and babble to others of what they had seen, and much of the glory and splendour of thy first appearance in those magnificent garments would be wasted. Wait until to-morrow, O Elephant whose tread causes the earth to tremble with fear, and then—when the whole army is gathered together, and all can see thee at the same moment—thou shalt reveal thyself in all thy magnificent splendour, and—and—words fail me to predict the result.”
“Perhaps thou art right, Mapela the Wise One,” answered the king, kindly overlooking—or perhaps not noticing—the rather lame and impotent conclusion of the induna’s high-flown speech. “Yes; perhaps thou art right,” (this rather regretfully). “But there is no reason why I should not at once show myself to my wives; and, by the bones of my royal father, I will! There be those among them who of late have shown a tendency to make light of my words and hold me of small account. I will see what they will say and how they will act when they behold me as I now am!”
And therewith, Lomalindela, autocrat of the Mashona nation, lord of life and death over nearly a million people, stalked across the room with his sword clanking at his heels, drew aside a curtain, and disappeared behind it. There followed a breathless silence for the space of perhaps half a minute, a silence deep, pregnant, and almost awe-inspiring; and then there floated out from the other side of the kaross curtain a little shriek in an unmistakable feminine tone of voice, a shriek expressive of mingled astonishment, awestruck wonder, and delight, immediately followed by a perfectly deafening clamour of exclamations and laughter from at least fifty women—if their number might be gauged by the volume of sound that they created—amid which might be imperfectly caught, at intervals, the deep tones of Lomalindela’s voice, raised apparently in remonstrance, entreaty, and indignation.
Mapela, the Wise One, and I glanced enquiringly at each other, and methought that even in the semi-obscurity of that darkened interior I could detect the ghost of a twinkle of amusement in the old induna’s eyes; for my own part, I remember that I was grinning from ear to ear as my imagination conjured up a picture of the scene which was enacting behind that curtain. The shouts, exclamations, laughter, and remonstrances increased rather than diminished as the moments sped, and presently Mapela came to me, took me by the arm, and gently led me from the itunkulu, saying as he did so:
“Come, ’mlungu; let us go. A king is but a man, after all, among his women folk, and it is not seemly that you and I should linger and hear more of what is passing yonder.”
Once safely away from the itunkulu, and beyond reach of the unseemly sounds which issued therefrom, Mapela conducted me to the group of chiefs still gathered round the royal chair and introduced me to them severally and individually; then, discreetly and with a certain air of mystery, he hinted to his fellow indunas that the investiture of the Great, Great One had been successfully accomplished, with such amazing and magnificently splendid results that it would be well for them all to spend the night in preparing to be astonished, for on the morrow they should find themselves overwhelmed with wonder and admiration. And finally, he threw out a cautious feeler with the object of ascertaining whether perchance it had occurred to me that it might be politic on my part to confirm the excellent impression which I had already made by bestowing upon him and his fellow indunas a small—a very small—modicum of the inestimable treasures which they all knew my wagon must still contain. To this I replied that the idea was at that moment the one uppermost in my mind, and that I gladly availed myself of the opportunity afforded by the king’s temporary absence to invite them to call upon me in a body as soon as possible, to receive my largesse.
Then I, in turn, took up my parable, and, in humble emulation of Mapela’s engaging frankness, hinted that if by any chance the king—or anybody else—should feel moved to display a feeling of friendliness to the extent of bestowing upon me a return present, I wanted nothing of actual value—such as spears, shields, and the like—but would gladly accept as much of that useless stuff, gold, as people might desire to force upon me, the accumulation of gold being one of my chief hobbies; eccentric, amusing, perhaps even ridiculous, but—well, there it was. And I accompanied my final statement with a shrug of the shoulders which I intended should express deprecation of my own folly. I intercepted a glance and nod of intelligence and amusement which passed round the circle at this naïve confession of folly on my part, and at that moment the king, shorn of his temporary glories, and with a distinct frown of annoyance upon his royal brow, emerged from the itunkulu and stalked towards us. Also, to my secret discomfiture, I observed that he carried in his hand the sword which I had just presented to him, and in the use of which he had expressed a desire to be instructed. I began to think that I had permitted my passion for harmony and completeness to carry me rather too far when I included the sword with the other items of the uniform which I had selected for presentation to King Lomalindela; and I resolved, there and then, never again to include lethal weapons of any description among my gifts to savages.
The king flung himself down into his throne with much of the petulance of manner that is observable in the demeanour of a spoilt child when its temper has been ruffled, from which I surmised that the impression produced upon the ladies of his harem by His Majesty’s martial garb had fallen short in some respects of what he had anticipated; that in fact, and not to put too fine a point upon it, His Majesty’s vanity had been taken down a peg or two—for the which I was rather sorry, because I somehow had a premonition that the resulting soreness of temper would recoil upon me. And, for once in a way, my premonition was promptly verified; for after scowling round for a minute or two upon all and sundry, maintaining meanwhile an ominous silence, the king straightened himself up and said sharply:
“Now, white man, we have wasted enough time in folly; let us proceed with the matter which I was discussing when you interrupted me. You were about to show me how this thing which you call a ‘sword’ should be used. You shall show me now. Mapela, choose you a skilled warrior from your regiment, that he may fight this white man, and that I may thus be able to judge the real value of the white man’s gift. The white man shall be armed only with the sword, and the Mashona’s weapons shall be his shield and stabbing spear.”
Saluting, Mapela strode across the square to where his regiment was drawn up, and moved slowly along the ranks, critically eyeing each man over as he did so. I believed that I had succeeded in producing a tolerably good impression upon Mapela; moreover, it was to his interest that I should not be killed, for if I should chance to be slain he might bid goodbye to his hopes of obtaining a present from me: and I began to wonder whether “the Wise One” possessed enough mental acuteness and alertness to conceive the idea of quietly warning the warrior whom he might choose that there was no need for him to put up a real fight, and that every purpose would be served if the warrior, while feigning to use his best endeavours to kill me, should skilfully permit me to disarm him. Unfortunately, however, Mapela could not know what was passing in my mind, and I had missed the only opportunity that had presented itself for discussing the matter with him—which was while the king was displaying his fine feathers to his ladies; and it might very well happen that the old induna, animated by the best intentions in the world toward me, might select a foeman whom he might deem well worthy of my steel, for the purpose of enabling me to display my skill before the king. It was a most annoying dilemma for a peaceably disposed young fellow like myself, with a natural aversion to unnecessary strife and bloodshed, to find himself in, and for the life of me I could see no way out of it. The king was clearly in no mood to listen to argument; indeed, he was evidently very much ruffled in temper, and in just that frame of mind which would impel him to insist the more strongly on having his own way should I attempt anything in the nature of dissuasion: therefore all I could see for it was to submit to his whim, and do my best to disarm my antagonist without hurting him.
By the time that I had thus far considered the matter, Mapela had made his choice, and now approached us, accompanied by a fine, stalwart young Mashona warrior of some five or six and twenty years of age, a ringed man, whose smooth, dark skin was already seamed here and there with scars that told of more than one hard-fought fight, and whose lithe and easy movements indicated that he was in the very pink of fighting condition. Halting within a pace or two of where I stood, near the king, Mapela saluted, and said:
“Behold, O Great, Great One, I have chosen a warrior, even as you bade me. He is named ’Mfuni, and is the son of Matanga, one of our most skilled and cunning fighters, who has carefully trained his son in all the arts of warfare. Is my choice approved?”
I looked at my proposed antagonist, and a single glance into his eyes, aglow with pride and resolution, convinced me that whatever hope I might have cherished regarding Mapela’s supposed desire for my escape from the ordeal to which I was about to be subjected had been utterly misplaced. His cupidity in respect of possible gifts, if indeed he had been animated by any such feeling, had evidently been swamped by his sense of duty to his king, and he had as evidently picked a warrior well calculated, in his opinion, to uphold and maintain the honourable traditions of the Mashona army. ’Mfuni’s every look and movement clearly proclaimed that he regarded himself as the chosen champion of the entire Mashona nation, and that he was fully prepared to lay down his life in the endeavour to uphold its prestige. It was clear that I should have to look well to myself if I desired to see the light of another day.
Moved by a sudden impulse to avoid, if possible, a combat that, however it might end, could be of no possible advantage to me, I turned to the king and said:
“Surely Your Majesty is not in earnest in insisting that I should fight the man in order to demonstrate the way in which the sword that I have given thee should be used? I can show thee all that there is to show, without the slightest need for bloodshed, as thus—permit me!” and I took the sword from the king’s hand, unsheathed it, and, laying the scabbard at the king’s feet, approached ’Mfuni, smiling into the man’s eyes to show him that I meant him no harm.
“Now, ’Mfuni,” said I, as I halted within striking distance of him, “raise thy spear, as though thou wert about to strike it through my heart.”
The man looked doubtfully at me, and then flung a lightning glance of enquiry at the king. But the latter made no sign; therefore, after a moment’s pause, ’Mfuni raised his spear as I had bade him.
“Now,” I continued, in a low voice, intended only for his ear, “when I say ‘Strike’, thrust at me—not too quickly, but just quick enough to make the blow look real. Strike!”
Prompt at the word, the man struck, exactly as I had told him to do; and without the least difficulty I parried the blow, shearing the head of the spear from its haft, and leaving the latter in the astonished savage’s hand.
“You see, O Great One?” I said, stepping back and turning to the king. “The thing is quite simple; a mere turn of the wrist does it—thus,”—and I illustrated my meaning by parrying an imaginary thrust. “The head of your adversary’s spear is shorn off, and he is disarmed and at your mercy, to be slain or not, as you may choose. And that is all there is in it. No need to fight in order to show how the sword should be used.”
The king glowered at me for several seconds in silence. Then, with a scornful laugh, he exclaimed:
“Pah! that was nothing; a boy of six years could have done as much. And ’Mfuni made no effort to slay thee, else thou wouldst not be alive now. I begin to have my doubts of thee, white man. Dost thou desire my death, that thou hast given me a weapon of no use in the time of battle?”
“But it is of use,” I insisted hotly. “For nearly twelve moons I, with others, fought the Tembu, the Pondos, and the Griquas, using a similar weapon to this, and I am alive this day.”
“Then,” retorted Lomalindela, with a malicious grin, “if thou art so sure of the effectiveness of the weapon, let me see thee use it in a real fight. Mapela, give ’Mfuni thy spear. And, hark ye, ’Mfuni, if thou canst slay the white man, or even disable him, thou shalt choose twenty head of cattle from mine own herd, and they shall be thine. But if the white man proves to be the victor in the fight, and there is still life in thee when it is over, I swear, by the bones of my royal father, that thou shalt be given to the ants! Thou hearest?”
“I hear, O Great, Great One, Calf of the Black Bull, Elephant whose tread shakes the earth. Bayete!” answered ’Mfuni, lifting on high the haft of the spear from which I had shorn the head.
So I was in for it, with no ghost of a chance of escape; and the very gift—or, rather, one item of it—upon which I had so confidently relied to win me the favour and goodwill of the king had, through that monarch’s capricious and suspicious nature, been the instrument by means of which I had become involved in a duel that must almost inevitably end in a ghastly tragedy. For, after what the king had said to my antagonist, there was no doubt that the fellow would do his utmost to kill me; while I, in pure self-defence, and also for his sake, must do my best to kill him. I fully understood, the meaning of the king’s horrible threat to give the poor fellow to the ants; and, rather than see him condemned to so dreadful a fate, I would slay him with my own hand!