“Then that is your ‘word,’ Madúla,” he said. “You will send no cattle?”
“Have I not spoken?” returned the chief. “Whau! The Government must employ queer messengers if it sends men who cannot understand plain words. If there are no King’s cattle for me to send, how can I send any? Is not that ‘word’ plain enough, Nanzicele?” And again a shout of uproarious delight went up from the young men.
“There is a plainer ‘word,’” retorted the police sergeant, “and that is the ‘word’ of the Government. All the cattle in the country are King’s cattle, therefore the cattle of Madúla are King’s cattle, and as Madúla will not send them in I am here to take them. Fare ye well, children of Madúla. You have resisted the arm of the Government, and you have insulted its mouth. Fare ye well;” and there was a volume of threatening significance in the tone.
No movement was made to hinder them as the handful of police marched out between the serried ranks of dusky forms, the glare of savage animosity darting forth from hostile eyes. But as they gained the outside of the kraal a great roar of derision went up, coupled with allusions which caused Nanzicele to scowl darkly. For the incident to which they referred was the curt refusal of a follower of Madúla to give him one of his daughters to wife, at less than the current market value; in which the obdurate parent received the full support of his chief, who was in nowise disposed to befriend the Government policeman. The man had since married his daughter to somebody else, but Nanzicele had neither forgotten nor forgiven. And now the young men of the kraal followed him jeering, and improvising songs asking whether Nanzicele had found a wife yet.
But soon such good humour as underlay their mirth was turned to downright hate. They had followed the retreating police as far as the brow of an eminence some little distance from the kraal, and now a sight met their view which turned every heart black with pent up hostility. Away over the plain a dust cloud was moving, and behind it the multicoloured hides of a considerable herd of cattle. These were travelling at a swift pace, propelled by the shouts of a number of running figures. The bulk, if not the whole, of Madúla’s cattle were being swept away by the Government emissaries.
No further time had Madúla’s people to devote to this handful of police, whom hitherto they had busied themselves with annoying. With long-drawn whoops of wrath and rally, they surged forward, intent only on retaking their cherished, and, in fact, their only possessions. Assegai blades flashed suddenly aloft, drawn forth from their places of concealment, and the plain was alive with the dark forms of bounding savages. There would be a collision and bloodshed, and the country was in no state for the heaping of fuel upon a smouldering fire.
But Nanzicele’s native astuteness had not been caught napping. He had been prepared for some such move, for his quick glance had not been slow to note that many of those who had followed him from the kraal were arrayed in skin karosses or other nondescript articles of attire, whereas, only just before, except for their mútyas, they had been naked. This could mean nothing but concealed weapons, and when such were produced he was ready for the contingency. With hurried, muttered commands to his men to hold their rifles in readiness, he pressed them forward at the double, and arrived on the scene of turmoil not much later than Madúla’s excited tribesmen.
These, for their part, had rushed the situation on all sides, and things were already tolerably lively. The scared and maddened cattle, frenzied by the dark forms surging around them front and rear, halted, bunched, “milled” around for a moment in blind unreasoning fear, then broke up and streamed forth over the plain in a dozen different directions, bellowing wildly, and pursued by the whooping, bounding figures in their rear and on their flanks; and in a few moments, save for long lines of lingering dust-clouds, not one remained in sight. Nanzicele’s plan had miscarried entirely. In a fury the latter turned upon his corporal.
“Fool—dog—jackal!” he snarled. “Is this how my orders are obeyed? Instead of carrying them out promptly, were ye all asleep or drinking beer with the women? Yonder cattle should have been halfway to Jonemi’s by this time, and lo now, Madúla and his herd of Amaholi are laughing at us. Thou, Singisa—I will have thee flogged out of the ranks with raw-hide whips. Was I to keep Madúla talking for a moon instead of a very small piece of a day, to give thee time to rest thy lazy carcase and go to sleep? Ye shall all suffer for this, and dearly.”
But the corporal was not much perturbed by this threat. He merely shrugged his shoulders.