“Now, while I had been talking with this wonderful old man, my comrades and the bulk of our impi had been seated on the ground resting after the violence and fury of the fight. Some, too, had wounds to attend to; but all were sitting or lying about resting, and the place where I now stood being a little depression in the ground, they had not noticed me. Now, however, attracted by the sound of voices, several of them came swaggering up.
“‘Ha, Untúswa!’ roared the foremost. ‘You have found more meat to kill. Come, we will help you kill it.’ And, poising his assegai, he sprang forward to the old Mosutu witch-doctor.
(Mosutu and Basutu. Basutu is a plural word, and denotes the tribe, or more than one member of it. The singular is Mosutu.)
“‘Stand! Stand back!’ I thundered. ‘This is not a man to kill. He must be taken to the King.’
“‘To the King! Ha, ha! The King does not want to see the faces of such withered old images. You are mad, Untúswa.’
“‘Mad or sane, this man shall be taken to the King,’ I answered.
“‘Ha! Since when has Untúswa, the umfane been made an induna?’ they jeered. ‘Of a truth he believes himself a bigger man than the King.’
(Umfane: “boy,” i.e., technically, one who has not attained to the distinction of the head-ring.)
“And others, drawn by the tumult, had come to join the first, and now the air rang with roars and shouts of derision. But above them all the old man’s marvellously prophetic words still echoed in my ears. At all risks I was determined to save him.
“‘Who is the most about the King, O pack of fools?’ I cried. ‘Yourselves or I? Know, then, that the Elephant, whose tread shaketh the world, has heard much of these Basutu izanusi, who learn their magic in dark caves of the mountains—has often wished to converse with them and test their skill. Here is one of them at last, and go to the King he shall. I would not give much for the life of the man who slays him.’