“And if my horse is lame how shall I use him?”
“You would not use him in any case,” was his answer. “The sound of a horse’s hoof travels far at night, that of a man’s foot, not. We walk.”
“Walk? Why then the place must be quite near.”
“Quite near it is, Iqalaqala,” slipping into rather an unwarrantable familiarity in addressing me by my native name, but this didn’t exercise me you may be sure. “Quite near, but—nowhere near the snake pool. Quite the other way. You will take the nephew of Nyamaki with you.”
“Ah! And—what of Umsindo?”
“Ha! Umsindo? He is a good fighting bull—but then he is a blundering bull. Yet we will take him, for his strength will be useful. For, we will take Ukozi alive.”
“That will not be easy, Jan Boom. And then—just think, how much easier it will be to kill him.”
“Yet we will do it. We will take him alive. You were asking but now, Nkose, what other motive I had in helping you,” he answered, with a dash of significance.
“Ah!”
“So we will take Ukozi alive. Is that to be?”