“Standing over the old witch-doctor with my assegai in my hand confronting that riotous, roaring crowd, flushed with victory and bloodshed, I know not how things might have gone even then. But at that moment the induna Gungana, attracted by the tumult, himself drew near, and that in time to catch my last words.
“‘Give way!’ he said, striding through the group—‘give way! What is this? An isanusi, and alive? By the head-ring of the Great Great One from whose rule we have gone out, but he must have brought himself to life again, for assuredly all were slain but a moment before. Ha! that is well. Now shall the King have his oft-expressed wish. He shall behold this Mosutu rain-maker, and test his magic. What—is that you, Untúswa?’
“Now, it happened that Umzilikazi had expressed no such wish. In my despair of finding a plea, I had invented this as a reason for sparing the old magician. I could see now that Gungana’s design was to supplant me in this, even as he had done in my plan for overmastering the Basutu kraal. If sparing the life of the old witch-doctor proved acceptable to the King, he, Gungana, would get the credit for it; if not—then I laughed to myself, for in that case he would have fallen into his own trap. And if anything should go wrong with the King hereafter, who but Gungana was it who had brought this foreign wizard into our camp? But before I could answer a shout went up from the warriors standing in the background, and all heads were turned accordingly.
“‘The King! The King is coming!’ And the words were taken up by all there present, and, with the phrases of bonga flowing thick and fast from our lips, all eyes were turned upon a cloud of dust on the horizon—distant, but drawing nearer and nearer.
“‘Go now, Untúswa, who art the chief runner. Go now, and meet the Great Great One with word of our victory,’ commanded Gungana.”
Chapter Four.
The Tyay’igama Dance.
“Hardly had the word left Gungana’s lips than I was up and away. No thought of the witch-doctor was in my mind as I sped over the ground in that long, even trot which I could keep up for days, and eventually overtake a horse which had started at the same time. Of cuts and stabs many were upon me, and I was red and hideous with blood, flowing or dried. But this mattered less than nothing, and I laughed loud and joyously as I coursed along to be the first to bear to the King the news he most loved to hear. Of a truth, the old isanusi I had saved from death—if, indeed, I had saved him from death—had gone clean out of my mind. Yet, if I had but known it, that day was to my life what the bent rods are to the roof of a hut.