“Ill will befall us, brothers; ill because of it.” And Gingamanzi, the highest in rank of the group of Abantwana Mlimo there deliberating, clicked deprecatorily, and spat.
This Gingamanzi was a small, crafty-looking Makalaka, very black, and with a nose almost aquiline, giving a predatory and hawklike aspect to his forbidding countenance. His status in the hierarchy of the Abstraction was hardly second to that of Qubani, indeed there were those who reckoned his gifts the greater.
The group was seated in the open—a huge, riven granite pillar towering up behind them. Above, around, everywhere, vast granite blocks were piled, shutting in the place on all sides. It had been raining heavily for several hours, though by now it was sullenly clearing, and on the wet earth, stamped flat and muddy by hundreds of feet, fires were springing up in the dusk, and the hum of many voices rose and fell upon the damp heavy air.
Hundreds were collected here; all fighting men, no women and dogs. Weapons of war lay behind each group, just as they had been put down: shields, assegais, guns of all sorts and sizes, axes, knob-sticks. It was evident that this was an important stronghold and rallying point for the Matabele impis in the field.
“Zwabeka will bring destruction upon us, brothers,” went on Gingamanzi. “He it is that spared this Makiwa. He laughs at Umlimo.”
“Perhaps he is but keeping him as a sacrifice to Umlimo,” said another. “A man half dead already would make a poor sacrifice.”
“Zwabeka is chief here now,” went on Gingamanzi meaningly. “By the time the sun has risen twice, he will not be. We will go and look at this Makiwa, and see how soon he will be ready for Umlimo. Zwabeka will not give him to us now, but when he is dead, he will be glad to.”
“Au!” grunted another, “I am but a child beside the chief of the Abantwana Mlimo. Still I would ask—Of what use is one who is already dead, as a sacrifice to Umlimo?”
Gingamanzi put his head on one side.
“Thou art but a child! Ah! ah! that is true, Kekelwa. For the man will not really be dead but will only seem to be. If I can but touch him with this; one touch, even one little touch that he will hardly feel; why then he will be as one dead to the beholders, and yet he will know all that goes on. He will even be able to feel.”