It is true that these people who had been slain were the King’s guests, but then we have a custom under which one great chief must not go to the kraal of another great chief of equal rank. The great chief of the Amabuna claimed to be the equal of the House of Senzangakona. He did not approach the King as a subject, but as an equal; and by our custom Dingane was justified in causing him and his followers to be slain, for he had placed himself within the power of the King, and that as an equal. Whau, Nkose! You white people and ourselves see things differently, and I suppose it will always be so. Dingane and the Zulu people did not choose these invaders to seize their land, so they used what they thought was the quickest and easiest way of preventing them from doing so.
Chapter Fifteen.
The Crushing of the Snake.
As we sat there, we izinduna, watching the place of slaughter where those evil-doers had found death, we heard the volume of a mighty war-song approaching. Those within Nkunkundhlovu hushed their own singing and gazed outward. A great impi drew near, marching in columns like unto broad black snakes gliding over the ground. Yet, not all black, but spotted; for the white and red of shields, the streaming of cowhair tufts, the rustling of feather capes, showed forth above the blackness of marching bodies. The wavy glint of spear-points in the sun was as a sea of light—the tramp of feet as the dark and terrible array swung onward—the thunder of the war song! Hau! I could feel all the blood tingling within me, and my eyes were aglow as I gazed. Here was a force, indeed. That which had been led against us by Mhlangana might equal it, but could hardly surpass it.
On they came—and as this vast mass of warriors poured in by the lower gate of Nkunkundhlovu they raised the war song of Dingane:
“Us’eziténi,
Asiyikuza sababona.”
Soon the great open space within was crowded. Rank upon rank the warriors squatted there, crouching behind their shields, their eyes glaring like those of lions as they awaited the word which should let them loose upon their prey. When the roar of the “Bayéte,” which greeted the King’s appearance, had sunk into silence, Dingane addressed them:
“Lion cubs of Zulu, you are here in your might, for yonder lies prey worthy of your fangs. Yonder is an enemy who has swarmed down upon our land like the deadly locust pest—an enemy who comes with soft words, but never fails to devour that people who is fool enough to believe those words.