“I see you, amadoda,” he answered shortly.
“He, there, has a message,” said the first who had spoken, indicating the only one of the three who was not head-ringed. “It has travelled from Tegwini.” (Durban.)
“Well, what is it?” rejoined the white man, shortly.
“It is here,” said the unringed native, producing a small packet, which he carried tied on to the end of a stick. Rawson snatched it eagerly. It was a sort of oilskin enclosure.
“Now, what the devil can this be?” he said to himself, fairly puzzled. But the mystery was soon solved. The wrappings being undone, revealed nothing less commonplace that a mere letter—addressed to himself. Yet why should the bronze hue of his forbidding countenance dull to a dirty white as he stared at the envelope? It might have been because he knew that writing well, and had cherished the fond delusion that the writer hadn’t the ghost of an idea as to his own whereabouts. What then? Well, the writer of that letter had power to hang him.
He remembered to give the Zulus snuff out of a large box which he always carried, then while they sat down leisurely to enjoy the same, he tore open the envelope, and that with hands which trembled somewhat. The communication, however, was brevity itself. Thus it ran:
“A friend of mine—name Wyvern—is going into your part, even if he is not already there. Take care of him. Do you hear? Take care of him.
“Warren.”
Rawson stared at the words while he read them again and again, “Take care of him.” Oh, yes, he would do that, he thought to himself with a hideous laugh. Then he fell to wondering what sort of a man this object of Warren’s solicitude might be—whether, in fact, he would prove an easy one to “take care of.” Well, that, of course, events would show. Anyway, what was certain was that Warren’s wishes had to be attended to by him, Bully Rawson.
Turning to the Zulus he asked about news. Was there any?
Not any, they said. The country was getting more and more disturbed because the English Government could not make up its mind. It made one arrangement to-day, and another took its place to-morrow, and now nobody in Zululand knew who was his chief or whether he had any chief at all. There had been some fighting, they had heard, in Umlandela’s country, but even about that there was no certain news.