“‘Now, these spies shall die, else are the two of us dead!’ I muttered in desperation, gripping my assegais and making to spring across the donga. But again Nangeza restrained me.
“‘Gahle, gahle! Wilt thou never learn wisdom?’ she whispered. ‘They are but girls. Speak to them fair.’
“‘Come forth,’ I cried, ‘lest I come to seek you!’
“‘Spare yourself the trouble, son of Ntelani!’ they cried, laughing, and stepping from their hiding-place.
“Three there were. Two of them were sisters; the other I recognised as a distant relation of my father Ntelani. And then the awful consternation which had entered my mind at the idea of our deadly plot having been overheard gave way to relief as I remembered that Nangeza’s voice had been sunk to the lowest of whispers. Only the last words had been uttered aloud, and these, if absurd, were not perilous. Gungana, as the commander of my own regiment, would be a natural object of emulation; nor was my love’s ambition to see me a leader of men the less natural.
“‘Hail, Izintombi (Maidens)!’ I cried, with a loud laugh. ‘You do well thus to greet Nangeza. For I intend to lobola for all three of you, as well as for her. Then will she be your Inkosikazi indeed.’
“‘Has the King already granted you the head-ring, Untúswa?’ asked one of the two sisters, when the screams of laughter with which they heard my remark had subsided.
“‘You cannot lobola for all of us,’ said the other girl; ‘for am I not Ntelani’s “sister”?’
(Sister or Cousin means ‘related.’ The impediment of ‘consanguinity’ is respected with extraordinary rigour, and no Zulu will marry even the most distant cousin, or any girl whom there may be reason to suspect of sharing the very faintest strain of his blood.)
“‘Whau! that is the more the pity,’ I said. ‘As things are, I meant to have sent lobola for all three of you, although I am but poor. For how could I make choice of one or two where all are so perfect?’