“We are the King’s cattle,” I said. “We are here to place our lives beneath the foot of the Elephant. Yet, O Ruler of the World, there are some who should taste the goring of our horns. We are the King’s fighting-bulls. And, Great Great One, suffer us ere we die to spill once more the blood of the King’s enemies.”
“Yet, Untúswa, it sometimes happens that fighting-bulls, growing mad, turn and gore their owners. They had better have been slain first,” said Dingane, with dark suspicion in his tone.
Now I saw what was to be done, though I hardly knew what to say.
“I would ask the Great Great One wherefore these are here at all, but that they may drink the blood of the King’s enemies?” I urged, amazed at my own boldness. “Were they here for any other purpose, why then they were already dead, Father of the Wise. Au! they seek but to die in the ranks of those who fight. That is all, Calf of a Black Bull.”
And they on whose behalf I spoke uttered a great murmur of assent, together with words of bonga and the King’s titles.
Then I saw Dingane whisper to one who sat near him, and this one retired. Whau! that was a moment. We who sat there seemed already dead. Around crouched the two immense half circles of armed warriors, their shields lying on the ground before them—all in dead silence—and in his great chair made out of the carved trunk of a tree, the great white shield held aloft at the back of his head, the King sat, silent, stern, gloomy looking. His attitude was that of one who waited. Waited for what? For the carrying out of his order decreeing, our death?
Then some new event was astir. There stood before the King a woman. Now my followers dared to breathe again, and the sound went up from every chest like a sob of relief. And seeing who the woman was, my own relief became greater still, for she was my sorceress-wife.
“Hearken, Mahlula,” said the King. “See you these?”
“I see them, Great Great One,” she answered, sweeping a majestic glance over us. “They are those known as the Bapongqolo. They are here to lay their lives beneath the foot of the Elephant, and to crave the right to die fighting for him.”
“And how dost thou know that, my sister?” said Dingane suspiciously.