“Never, lord.”
“And that is all we know about it,” whimpered Nxope, still in fear for her life.
But she need not have been. My anger against them was past now, for I could see they had told me all they knew, and that was—nothing. Besides, of them I had no further thought. I sat down on the floor of the hut and thought. The third night after I left. Ha! The vision in Gasitye’s cavern! Had I not seen Lalusini’s face among the others—among the faces of the dead—for such were all the others? She, too, had passed into the Great Unknown.
Now my thoughts at once flew off to the King. I saw his hand in this matter. Umzilikazi had broken faith with me. He had seized the opportunity of my absence to put my sorceress-wife to death, and that secretly and in the dead of night. Ha! I saw it all now. All that had been said that morning connected him with this. Had he not repeatedly taxed me with not carrying out the conditions of my challenge, so as to justify his own act of treachery? And then his words, uttered in soft, mocking tones: “Well, well, Untúswa. It is not always possible to carry out conditions in their entirety, is it? Ah, ah! not always possible,” That pointed to some breach on his part of his own conditions. And again: “I have even harder conditions awaiting thee than the slaying of tagati beasts.” It was all as clear now as the noonday sun. Yet why should he thus have tried to excuse what he had done? At a nod from him—one word—I had gone to join the others whose faces I had seen, dim and horrible, in the wizard cave. And then I knew that if the son of Matyobane, founder and first King of the Amandebeli nation, had never made a mistake in his life, he had made one when he failed to give that nod, to utter that word; for, so sure as he had ordered the death of Lalusini, so sure would a new king reign over the Amandebeli, and that speedily.
I have already told you, Nkose, that the love which I felt for Lalusini was after the manner of the love which white people bear for their women; and, indeed, I think but few, even, of them. Now, as I sat there, realising that never again should I behold my stately and beautiful wife, never again hear the tones of her voice—always soft with love for me—the thoughts that hunted each other through my mind were many and passing strange. In truth, I was bewitched. All that had constituted the joy of living was as nothing now—my rank and influence, my ambitions, the fierce joy of battle, the thunder of the war-march, of rank upon rank of the splendid warriors I commanded—all this was as nothing. And at this moment there crossed my mind the thought of that priest-magician, the white man whom we found offering sacrifice in the forest—of whom I told you in a former story—and who dwelt with us long. I thought of his teaching and his mysteries, and of the God of Peace of whom he taught, and how that, if he were here now, I would gladly put myself through his strange water-rite, and participate in his mysterious sacrifices, so that I might once more be reunited to Lalusini in another world; for such seemed to me to have been his teaching—at least, so as I remembered it. But he, too, was dead; and, though I might sacrifice oxen at his grave, I doubted whether his voice even then would tell me what to do, for I remembered he liked not such sacrifices. Besides, he had always taught that it was not lawful to kill any man, save in defence of our lives or nation; and if there was one thing as firmly rooted in my mind then, Nkose, as the Intaba Zungweni yonder is rooted to the plain, it was that the son of Matyobane should himself travel the road of death. I cared not what fate should be mine therefor; nor, indeed, that my whole kraal—wives, children, relatives, followers—should die the death of the spear or the stake; I myself would slay the King with my own hand. And then it seemed that waves of blood were rolling red around my brain. I saw myself King—I saw all those of Umzilikazi’s House led forth to die—I saw the surface of the Pool of Death scarlet with the blood of all who, in the farthest degree, boasted a single drop of the blood of Matyobane, till even the alligators, surfeited, refused to devour any more. Haul I would slay. Haul I would invent new tortures for every man, woman, and child of the now reigning House; I would execute such a vengeance that the tale of it should be handed down as long as the tongue of the Zulu was spoken in the world.
I know not, Nkose, what change this cloud of blood and flame rolling around my brain must have produced in my countenance, but I awoke from my thoughts to find Nxope and Fumana staring at me as though at a thing of horror. Their eyes were starting from their heads, their mouths were open, they seemed turned to stone, as though they were staring into the very jaws of the most terrible form of death. Then I remembered. If I would render my vengeance complete, I must be wary; silent and crafty as the leopard when marking down his prey. The strength of the warrior, the craft of the councillor, the coolness and self-control of both—such must be the rôle of every moment, waking or sleeping, of life.
“I think I have travelled too fast and too far, and am tired,” I said in an ordinary and even tone; yet, even as it was, so frightened were those two women that they half leapt at the sound of it. “You two,” pointing at them with my spear, “attend now. It is not good to talk too much. The tongue that wags too much must be cut out with this”—fingering the edge of the blade—“or the throat is less trouble to cut. Bear that in mind, for I know not how ye escaped with your lives but a short while ago.”
They were quick in their declarations of silence and careful utterance, and I knew I had sufficiently frightened them. And thus I left them.