“Waken, Untúswa!”
The whisper was soft, so, too, was the touch, yet I sprang to my feet, grasping my spear. But at the same moment my grasp on it relaxed, for before me stood Lalusini.
Wearied with the hard fierce fighting of the day, I had crept into a secure hiding-place beneath a rock overhung with all manner of undergrowth, and had slept soundly. Yet my dreams had been full of warring and battle, and now my great assegai was clotted and foul with blood, and more than one deep gash on body or limb felt stiff and smarting.
But all thought of myself seemed at an end as I looked at Lalusini. There was a hard fierce look upon her face such as I had never seen there before, and in it I saw a strong likeness to Dingane.
“The time has come, Untúswa,” she said shortly. “Take thy spear, look well to its point, and follow me.”
“That I will gladly do, Lalusini,” I answered. “But, as we travel, tell me, what work is before me now?”
“One stroke of thy broad spear—the King’s Assegai—ha, ha! it is well named—it will be a royal weapon indeed! One stroke of thy broad spear and we shall be great together, great even as I have often predicted to thee. Come! Let us hasten.”
There was an eager fierceness in her tone and manner that kept me marvelling; however, I would see what her plan was.
She led the way—not speaking. We passed beneath spreading forest trees, where the thick undergrowth impeded our advance, and the silence of the shade was only broken by the call of birds. It seemed as though men’s feet had never trodden here; yet I knew the spot, for this was one of the very refuges I had at first thought of running for myself.
“There,” said Lalusini, in a quick, fierce whisper, pointing with her hand. “Strike hard and true. So shall we be great together.”