“If they return and fail to kill or bring back the boy,” he was saying, “six of their leaders shall die. The Tooth shall bite them. They deserve that for allowing him to slip through them.”
“We have kept this white man and his Kafula dogs too long,” said Vunawayo, darkly. “Why not begin with him, now, this very day?”
“Ha! He is no fool, this Jandosi,” said Ingonyama, with a ferocious scowl. “What if his dog already barks in the ear of the king?”
“Even then, is not the bark of one dog, less than that of two—of several?” urged Vunawayo. “The king might not listen to one where he might to many. Besides, he has less and less reason to love the English; who, men whisper, are trying to pick a quarrel with him about one thing after another. Such is not the time for whispering into his ear tales against his own chiefs—against the best of his fighting men. Is the king a fool that he would exchange the hundreds of the Igazipuza spears for the lives of two miserable white dogs? No. Let Jandosi’s ‘tongue’ go prate at Undini—if it can reach there. It is as likely to be cut there as here.”
“What, then, would you counsel, my brethren?” said Ingonyama, looking round.
The indunas shrugged their shoulders, and all glanced tentatively at Vunawayo. He, evidently, was the Mephistopheles of the group.
“We think Vunawayo speaks clearly,” said one of them at length. “This white man and they that are with him should die.”
“I have long thought so,” said the chief, scowling ferociously at the recollection of the indignity he had suffered the previous night, held at the muzzle of the trader’s pistol. “And now—the manner of it. Shall they die by the bite of The Tooth?”
“That must depend,” replied Vunawayo. “This white dog has teeth of his own, and he will show them. They, too, can bite. He will die; but it will be biting hard. He will not leave his waggons, and he is well armed and brave. Now my counsel is this. He cannot always live without sleep, no man can. Wherefore towards dawn, when sleep is heaviest, let a company be told off to rush in upon and surprise him. They will be on him before he can wake, and thus will take him alive.”
“I doubt them finding any such easy capture,” muttered the chief, with a dissentient head-shake. “Is there no better plan?”