They had not long to wait. The impi headed straight for the cattle, and with a decision of purpose that left nothing to be desired, wedged between them and their drivers, and headed them off in another direction. The animals, panic-stricken, began to run wildly; cows with their calves racing one way, staid oxen, caught with the fever of the scare, now and then charging their new drivers, but these were seasoned to that sort of thing, and would skip nimbly out of the way, or roll on the ground, just in time to avoid the head thrust, while to all, each and every incident risky or laughable, was a source of infinite sport. One bull—chocolate-hided, sharp-horned—grew more than a danger, for with that shrill growling bellow emitted by his kind when partly scared and wholly angered, he drove his horns clean through a young warrior, flinging the rent carcase furiously in the air. But this in nowise detracted from the fun in general. Him however they incontinently assegaied.
The while a hubbub of voices rose loud through the trampling and bellowing of the cattle, whose drivers were inclined to show fight. This was in a measure stilled as the leader of the impi strode to the fore. As a brother of the exiled king he was too big a man for even the opposition party to treat otherwise than with a sulky respect.
“Whou, Qapela!” spoke Dabulamanzi, confronting the leader of the band that was driving the cattle. “What is this we see? A fighting leader of the Nokenke regiment, who slew three whites with his own assegai at Isandhlwana, now turned white man’s dog, now snapping at his absent king. Whou, Qapela!”
“Whou! Qapela!” echoed the warriors, in roaring derision, as more and more came crowding up.
He, thus held up to scorn, a ringed man of middle age, scowled savagely. It was one thing to be derided by a branch of the Royal Tree, quite another to be savagely hooted by a pack of unringed boys. It needed but a spark to set the train alight, to bring on a savage and bloody fight between the two rival factions.
“No dog of any white man am I, Ndabezita,” (Note 1) he answered, gloomily defiant. “I am but fulfilling the ‘word’ of my chief.”
“And thy chief? Who is he?” went on Dabulamanzi, his head thrown back, in the pride of his royal rank as he confronted the man. “U’ Jandone?”
“Whou! Jandone!” roared the warriors in scathing derision.
“Not so, Ndabezita,” replied the other, in a cool sneering voice, as that of one who is about to score. “My chief is a branch of the Royal Tree; a long branch of the Royal Tree—ah-ah—a long branch. What of U’ Hamu?”
The point was that he had named another brother of the King, an older one than Dabulamanzi; one of the chiefs under the Wolseley settlement, who with John Dunn and Sibepu, and one or two more, was actively opposed to Cetywayo’s return.